Is Russell Brand impossible to cancel?

The precedent of Louis CK's return from infamy to acceptability demonstrates comedians are held to different standards

Unless it can be proved in court that Russell Brand is a rapist or guilty of sexual assault then the media storm that engulfed him so suddenly after the Sunday Times and Channel 4's Dispatches programme published accusations against him made anonymously by four women will prove ultimately to be nothing more than publicity for his next project.

After all, there is precedent. In 2017, at the very zenith of the #metoo movement, comedian Louis CK admitted claims made by five women in the New York Times that he had inappropriately masturbated in front of them were true.

He said: 'These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly'.

Immediately after this admission, CK was cancelled - an experience he later likened to going 'to hell and back', estimating it cost him $35 million. He was dropped by his management and by streaming giants including Netflix, HBO and Disney subsidiary FX Networks. Production of all projects he was working on was halted, and his voice was either replaced or scrubbed from animated films he had already made.

Nine months later, however, he was performing again, at first making low-key, impromptu appearances at comedy venues and then in 2019 announcing a world tour. Today, all is apparently forgiven. Netflix hosts three of his comedy specials - one of which, Louis CK - 2017, is for this writer's money the greatest stand-up performance of all time - and he makes frequent appearances on high profile podcasts such as The Joe Rogan Experience.

Last year, he was even awarded a Grammy for his comedy special Sincerely Louis CK, in which he joked about his sexual misconduct shame: 'I like jerking off, I don’t like being alone, that’s all I can tell you. I get lonely, it’s just sad. I like company. I like to share. I’m good at it, too. If you’re good at juggling, you wouldn’t do it alone in the dark. You’d gather folks and amaze them.'

Is it possible permanently to cancel top rank comedians? Unless they've demonstrably and egregiously broken the law - a la Bill Cosby - the answer is probably not. By definition they operate on the fuzzy edges of society's norms and strictures, and we pay them handsomely to challenge our modes of thinking in ways that make us laugh, both at ourselves and the world we have constructed for ourselves.

Importantly, they don't as a rule pretend to be exemplars of moral rectitude and we anyway understand instinctively that they are not. In the truest sense of the word, the best comedians are subversive - which is what makes them compelling and alluring. To be in their presence is thrilling, which is why they are able to fill huge venues like the 2000-seat Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre, where Brand performed even as the allegations against him were being made.

I have long recognised that Brand is a charismatic, in the sense that he is able to cast a spell over anyone watching or listening to him through the sheer force and magnetism of his personality alone. It's a remarkable gift, one that no doubt makes him powerfully sexually attractive to many women and also that has previously enabled him unashamedly to behave like a hypocrite without any meaningful backlash.

I used to watch his Trews (true news, geddit?) vlog on YouTube in 2015 in which he would weekly broadcast, often from the back of a chauffeured limousine in London, to bemoan privilege. He would make gnomic statements like: 'What is the function of capitalism, except for self-preservation? It's got no real ideals, like to change things and make things better, create new institutions. All it wants to do is protect itself, and the band of the privileged at the top." In the same year, I also watched the Michael Winterbottom-directed film The Emperor's New Clothes in which multimillionaire Brand travelled the streets of London's financial district berating bankers via a mega-phone for complicity in the creation of a financial system that allowed for the existence of inequality.

Eventually I lost interest, but I did notice that not long afterward he was dating society heiress Jemima Khan - nee Goldsmith - and palling up with capitalism's biggest advocate Professor Jordan Peterson, and also with the political commentator Tucker Carlson who is so loathed by the left. 

Anyway, this is to digress. The claims made against Brand - which he denies - are very grim, but unless it can be proved illegality, specifically rape or sexual assault, has taken place, then are they really all that shocking? Brand has never made any secret of his libertine attitude toward sex, and given the magnitude of his fame surely the great majority of women who found themselves in his orbit would have known this. The Sun famously awarded him the title Shagger of the Year in 2006, 2007 and 2008, and he boasted openly of sleeping with between 80 and 90 women a month.

It will be interesting to see how Brand's former wife, the singer Katy Perry, responds to the allegations. When the actor Jonny Depp sued his ex-wife Amber Heard last year over accusations of domestic violence she had made against him, the testimony - 'he never pushed me, kicked me or threw me down any stairs' - of former flame supermodel Kate Moss was viewed by many as decisive.

But even were Perry to come out and say that Brand is a deviant on a par with the Marquis de Sade, it probably wouldn't be enough - not without irrefutable proof of illegality by his current accusers - to see him cancelled for any longer than Louis CK was, which is as it should be. Everyone has a right to a fair hearing.

Either Brand will be tried and, if found guilty, rightly go to prison for sex crimes, or in eighteen months I predict he will have a huge hit Netflix comedy special about this sordid and depressing episode.