Russell Brand Trial: Prosecution Weaponizes “Amusement Park Of Orgasms” Quote Star Used In Wendy Williams Interview

Russell Brand‘s October 2017 appearance on The Wendy Williams Show has been used against him during his rape trial in London.

The prosecution evoked the chat show in closing remarks on Friday at Southwark Crown Court, where Brand is on trial over three charges of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one of attempted indecent assault. Deadline has been reporting daily on the trial from a live video feed of the courtroom.

Riel Karmy-Jones, the prosecution barrister, told the jury: “Women were disposable … they didn’t matter to him [Brand]. They were the amusements, in what he described in a Wendy Williams interview as his ‘playground of orgasms.'”

Karmy-Jones slightly misquoted Brand’s original words on Wendy Williams — which were that he thought “the world was like an amusement park made out of orgasms” when he was young — but she used it to illustrate her argument that the Despicable Me star was “rampant in his desire to have sexual contact whenever he wished.” It is not the first time the prosecution has referenced the Wendy Williams comment.

In her final argument to the jury, Karmy-Jones alleged that Brand saw junior women in the workplace as a “disposable commodity.” Four of the six complainants worked in the television and radio industry at the time of their encounter with Brand. All have a lifelong right to anonymity, despite being identified in court and giving evidence during the trial.

Karmy-Jones invited the jury to put themselves in the shoes of Complainant 6, a former Channel 4 employee, who alleged that Brand demanded a massage and “plonked his head, mouth, and nose into the area of her genitals” during a workplace incident in 2009. “How would you feel if someone in a position of power in your workplace did that to you?” she asked.

Karmy-Jones began her closing remarks by reminding the jury that the six women behind the seven charges are “wholly unconnected” insofar as they “do not know each other and have never met.” She continued: “Six women who have nothing to gain, who have not sought the limelight, who have not taken part in documentaries, who have not made claims for compensation … There is no benefit to them.”

Karmy-Jones said Russell Brand: In Plain Sight, the 2023 Channel 4 documentary, and reporting by The Times of London, had caused the women to come forward and tell stories about their encounters with Brand that had “haunted them for years.”

In legal directions to the jury earlier on Friday, Mr Justice Bennathan, the judge presiding over the trial, said they must reach unanimous verdicts on each of the charges to convict Brand. He reminded jurors that the burden of proof is on the prosecution and that Brand is entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Bennathan expects the jury to begin verdict deliberations next Tuesday, November 3.

The trial continues.

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