'You Want to Do This': Russell Brand Had 'Maniacal Grin' While Dragging Woman to Toilet and Assaulting Her at Soho Party, Court Told

A woman who alleges Russell Brand r---- her was visibly shaken and crying while testifying in front of a jury at his trial in London. She said the comedian had a “weird maniacal grin” when he pulled her into a bar bathroom in 2004.

According to evidence heard at Southwark Crown Court on Monday, October 19, the woman told police that Brand said, “You want to do this,” during the alleged attack in the bathroom at a birthday celebration in Soho.

The MTV employee, in her 20s at the time, said she had seen Brand host Channel 4’s Big Brother spinoff programs before attending the party at Nordic Bar. According to her recorded police interview, it took approximately one minute after they first met at the party for Brand to grab her b------, and she described him as smiling “like a clown.”

Following this incident, Brand allegedly grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the toilet, where she claims he forced her to perform a s-- act while saying, “You want to do this,” and “Come on, don’t be a spoilsport.” She reported pushing him back at first, then freezing and closing her eyes. A man knocked on the cubicle door and asked if she was OK, and she then left the toilet in a daze, according to a report.

The woman was visibly distraught while testifying in court. She told the court that Brand was very heavy and that she could neither breathe nor fend off his attack. The woman estimated that the alleged assault lasted up to 10 minutes.

She also told police that Brand reacted as if nothing had happened. “I remember this really, really clearly, he turned to me and went, ‘Oh, I guess we should swap numbers now,’ like it was just all normal, like he hadn’t just forced me to do that,” she said.

Afterward, she said she was directed into a car with Brand, where she alleges he continued to pressure her to have s--. She believes Endemol, the production company behind Big Brother, rented the car. Many years later, after viewing a social media post about a documentary on Brand, she reported this to the police.

Brand’s barrister, Ian Winter, suggested during cross-examination that the woman voluntarily went to the toilet with Brand and was excited and charmed by him. The woman stated that she wasn’t charmed in the slightest. Winter also suggested she had wanted to go with Brand to a small bedsit, which she strongly denied.

Brand, 51, has pleaded not guilty on all counts and has said any sexual contact that may have occurred would have been consensual. In a video posted on social media after he was first charged in 2025, he said, “I was a drug addict, s-- addict and an imbecile. But what I never was a r-----. I’ve never engaged in non-consensual activity.”

Brand is charged with seven crimes, including three counts of r---, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of indecent assault, involving six women. The alleged offenses are said to have taken place between 1999 and 2009. The trial began on Monday, October 12, and is expected to take about six weeks to conclude, according to a report.