Russell Brand and why the allegations took so long to surface

It came as little surprise that the darker corners of the internet were ablaze with conspiracy theories this week, after Russell Brand used his YouTube channel to call the allegations of sexual assault and rape against him a “coordinated attack” and a “serious and concerted agenda” to control his voice.

But even among more mainstream voices, questions were raised about the timing. Toby Young, a former editor at the Spectator, asked if there was a “more innocent” reason why the Times, the Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches had “waited this long to produce their findings”, while the British business magnate Alan Sugar tweeted that it was “strange” that multiple people had come forward at the same time.

Russell Brand never hid his misogyny. So why did so many fail to see it?

Blatant displays of misogyny, such as “jokes” about sexual abuse and degradation of women, are never “harmless banter”. Radical feminists have been saying this since “lad culture”, a popular youth subculture that glorifies male violence, exaggerated expressions of masculinity and sexual aggression, first emerged in Britain as part of a backlash against feminist gains in the 1990s.

Whenever we tried to raise the alarm about this misogynistic “banter”, which came to dominate TV shows, newspaper columns, comedy acts and student life alike throughout the 2000s and 2010s, they accused us of “not having a sense of humour”, of being “too uptight”.

Now we’ll see how many bought Brand’s anti-‘mainstream media’ shtick

Russell Brand has spent the past decade telling the world not to trust the mainstream media industry. Now the comedian will find out whether the wider public has bought into this scorched-earth narrative – or if they believe the claims of rape and sexual assault reported in the Sunday Times and on Channel 4 over the weekend.

The allegations against Brand – which he denies – once again leave the British media industry reeling from claims that a prominent man was able to misuse his position for sexual pleasure.