I celebrated when I heard Russell Brand had been convicted of rape and sexual assault. I celebrated even more when he was sentenced to ten and a half years in prison. And no, I'm not going to apologise for that.
Apparently, celebrating a rape conviction makes some people uncomfortable. We are supposed to be measured, restrained and terribly concerned about the consequences for the convicted man and his family. His wife. His children. His career. His reputation. His future. His spiritual awakening. His fucking redemption.
Meanwhile, the women who reported sexual violence, endured the criminal justice process and gave evidence in court are gradually pushed out of the conversation. Funny how that works.
There is a hell of a lot to unpack about this case. Not simply the convictions themselves, but what the public response tells us about rape culture, masculinity, celebrity, the credibility of women and the extraordinary lengths we go to in order to rehabilitate the reputations of men convicted of sexual violence.
As someone who researches sexual violence, photography and the cultural production of rape victims, I find the aftermath of this case particularly revealing. Because a conviction does not necessarily dismantle the culture that protected a man in the first place.
Sometimes that culture simply finds another way to protect him.
Why I celebrated
I celebrated because securing a rape conviction is extraordinarily difficult. Getting a sexual violence complaint investigated, prosecuted and heard in court is an enormous undertaking. Securing a conviction is another matter entirely. And when the accused is a wealthy, famous and powerful man, with considerable resources and an army of supporters willing to publicly defend him, the obstacles can become even greater.
For years, Brand cultivated a public persona built around sexual excess. He was the outrageous, promiscuous, sex-obsessed celebrity. His behaviour towards women was frequently packaged as entertainment. Something to laugh about. Something that made him interesting, rebellious and irresistibly naughty. Except there is nothing particularly rebellious about a man sexually assaulting a woman.
And there is certainly nothing funny about rape.
What interests me is how easily the language of sexual excess can obscure the distinction between consensual sexual activity and sexual violence. Being promiscuous is not a crime. Having numerous sexual partners is not a crime. Being sexually adventurous, sexually compulsive or obsessed with sex does not make somebody a rapist. Raping somebody does. It really shouldn't be that fucking difficult to understand. Men use their own sluttiness to defend themselves against allegations of rape, while women's sluttiness is used to justify their rape
Sex addiction is not a defence to rape
One of the more troubling aspects of Brand's public narrative has been the emphasis on his sexual history, promiscuity and struggles with addiction. Brand has spoken openly about being obsessed with sex and having been extremely promiscuous. His legal position was that the sexual encounters were consensual. These are two entirely different matters.
Sex addiction is not a defence to rape. Nor is promiscuity. A man can have sex every day of the bloody week, sleep with hundreds of people, struggle with compulsive sexual behaviour or describe himself as a sex addict. None of these things gives him the right to disregard another person's consent.
Yet the language of addiction can perform some rather convenient cultural work. Suddenly, the conversation becomes one about the man's suffering. His compulsions. His demons. His struggles. His recovery. He becomes a man battling an illness rather than a man required to answer for his actions. And the women? Well, they become part of the unfortunate story of his troubled past.
I find this deeply problematic.
Not because addiction and compulsive sexual behaviour are unimportant, but because they are not interchangeable with sexual violence. Rape is not promiscuity taken too far. It is not an unfortunate consequence of having an excessive libido. It is sexual violence. We need to stop treating consensual sexual excess and sexual offending as though they exist on the same continuum.
A not-guilty verdict does not mean a woman lied
Another aspect of the public response that deserves attention is the treatment of the charges on which Brand was acquitted. There seems to be a rather extraordinary misunderstanding of what a not-guilty verdict actually means.
A not-guilty verdict means the prosecution did not establish the charge beyond reasonable doubt. It does not establish that the complainant lied. It does not establish that nothing happened. And it certainly does not give the general public permission to declare a woman dishonest. There is a bloody big difference between something not being proven to the criminal standard and something being proven false.
Yet we repeatedly see acquittals mobilised as evidence that women fabricate allegations of sexual violence. The women whose allegations did not result in convictions still went through the ordeal of reporting, investigation and giving evidence. Their experiences do not suddenly become irrelevant because a jury was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt on a particular charge. Nor should we assume we know what individual jurors thought about a particular complainant.
Interestingly, those claiming the entire trial was politically motivated or somehow rigged have to contend with the fact that the jury returned different verdicts on different charges. You cannot celebrate the acquittals as evidence that the justice system worked while simultaneously dismissing the convictions as evidence of a conspiracy. Well, you can. But it makes you look like a fucking idiot.
The wife is not automatically the victim
Now, let's talk about the wife. Because apparently, whenever a wealthy and powerful man is convicted of sexual violence, we must immediately turn our attention to the woman standing beside him. How is she coping? What will happen to her? Isn't she brave? Isn't she loyal? Hasn't she suffered enough?
Perhaps she has suffered enormously. I don't know. I don't know what Laura Brand knew, believed or experienced within her marriage. Nor am I particularly interested in pretending that I do. What interests me is the speed with which public sympathy can shift towards the wife of a convicted man and away from the women who testified about sexual violence.
The wife becomes the respectable woman. The devoted partner. The mother. The woman holding the family together. And her presence can be used to confer moral legitimacy upon the man beside her. Look, he has a wife who loves him! He has children! He must be a decent bloke! Really?
A wedding ring is not evidence of innocence. A woman's loyalty does not invalidate another woman's testimony. And marriage does not magically transform a man's sexual history into a story of decency and respectability.
There is also something deeply troubling about the assumption that a wife must be either an innocent victim or a loyal martyr. Women have agency. They make decisions. They hold beliefs. They can be supportive, conflicted, misinformed, complicit, financially dependent or completely unaware of what is happening around them. Sometimes several of those things can be true at once. I am not interested in constructing an imaginary account of Laura Brand's private life. I am interested in questioning why the public seems so determined to construct one.
The mythology of the devoted wife
The image of the devoted wife standing beside her disgraced husband is hardly new. It is one of the oldest performances of heterosexual respectability. The wife absorbs the shame. She holds the family together. She stands beside her man. Her suffering becomes evidence of her virtue, and her loyalty becomes evidence of his redeemability.
It is a remarkable arrangement.
A man is convicted of sexual violence, and somehow the public conversation becomes a celebration of his wife's devotion. Meanwhile, the women who testified are expected to disappear quietly into the background.
The cultural message is not particularly subtle.
The respectable woman stands by her man. The troublesome woman reports him. And the woman who reports him is then expected to demonstrate endless compassion for the consequences of his conviction. I have very little patience for this.
Won't anyone think of his children?
Ah yes. The children. Of course his children matter. They deserve privacy, care, protection and the opportunity to live their lives without being publicly punished for their father's actions. Absolutely.
But the women who reported sexual violence are not responsible for the consequences of his convictions. They did not create those consequences by giving evidence. And they should not be made to carry the emotional burden of what happens to his family.
Why is it that women are so frequently expected to consider everybody else's suffering before their own? Think of his wife. Think of his children. Think of his elderly parents. Think of his reputation. Think of his mental health. Think of his future. Apparently, everyone has a responsibility to protect the convicted man from the consequences of his actions except the man himself.
His children deserve compassion. So do the women who testified. These are not mutually exclusive positions.
The visual politics of the courtroom
This is where the case becomes particularly interesting to me as a researcher of photography and sexual violence. Think about the photographs that circulate during high-profile criminal trials. The famous man arriving at court. The wife standing beside him. The couple holding hands. The solemn expressions. The carefully photographed entrances and exits. The public performance of togetherness.
Now think about the women who gave evidence. Quite rightly, they are often anonymous. Their identities are protected. Their faces are not reproduced across newspapers and social media. But that necessary anonymity creates a significant visual imbalance.
We see the man. We see his wife. We see his family. We see his suffering, or at least images that invite us to interpret his appearance as suffering. And the women? They are largely invisible.
This matters because photographs do not simply illustrate events. They participate in the production of meaning. They tell us who is important, who deserves attention and whose emotions we are invited to recognise.
A photograph of a devoted wife holding her husband's hand is not necessarily an innocent illustration of a criminal trial. It can do cultural work. It can construct a narrative of loyalty, domestic respectability, family suffering and masculine vulnerability. Meanwhile, the women whose testimony brought the case before the court remain visually absent.
Their absence is necessary for their protection, but it can also leave them vulnerable to being reduced to faceless allegations. This is one of the central tensions in the visual representation of sexual violence. The people we see are often the people we are encouraged to feel something for. And the people we cannot see risk being pushed to the margins of public sympathy.
The image of the suffering wife can become more culturally powerful than the testimony of the woman who was sexually assaulted. That should concern us.
The mythology of the reformed man
Then, of course, there is the redemption narrative. He's married now. He's a father. He's sober. He's religious. He's changed. Wonderful.
People can change. They can recover from addiction, develop different beliefs, become better partners and parents, and attempt to live more ethical lives. But none of those things rewrites the past. Religion cannot travel backwards in time and manufacture consent. Sobriety cannot retrospectively transform sexual violence into consensual sex. And becoming a father does not erase responsibility for offences committed before fatherhood.
Yet we are extraordinarily fascinated by the redemption of powerful men. Their recovery becomes a compelling story. Their religious conversion becomes evidence of moral transformation. Their family life becomes proof of respectability. And the women they harmed become supporting characters in the man's journey towards becoming a better person.
It is a peculiar form of narrative theft. The story of sexual violence becomes the story of his recovery. The story of accountability becomes the story of his suffering. And the women are expected to be satisfied that he has found God, sobriety or some other form of personal enlightenment. Good for him. But none of it changes the question of consent.
How rape culture survives a conviction
We often talk about rape culture as though it is something that exists before a conviction. The disbelief. The victim-blaming. The questioning of women's credibility. The excuses made for powerful men. The suggestion that a woman's sexual history somehow determines whether she can be raped.
But rape culture does not necessarily disappear when a jury returns a guilty verdict. It can simply change its language. Before the conviction, we hear that the women are lying, exaggerating, seeking attention or motivated by money. After the conviction, we hear that the man has suffered enough. That his family has suffered enough. That his career is destroyed. That his children need their father. That he has changed. That we should show compassion.
The defence of the man shifts from denying the violence to minimising the significance of his accountability. And public sympathy begins to move. This is what I find so revealing about the aftermath of high-profile sexual violence trials.
A conviction may establish criminal responsibility, but it does not automatically dismantle the cultural structures that privilege masculine reputation, authority and suffering. Those structures can remain remarkably intact. The man continues to occupy the centre of the narrative. His future becomes the primary concern. His rehabilitation becomes the moral imperative. And the women are once again expected to accommodate everybody else's needs.
Celebrating a conviction is not celebrating suffering
I can celebrate a rape conviction without being some bloodthirsty monster. I understand that imprisonment does not undo sexual violence. It does not return the years consumed by criminal proceedings. It does not repair the emotional, psychological, financial or social consequences of reporting rape. And it certainly does not guarantee that a woman will feel better once the verdict has been delivered.
The criminal justice system is not a magical machine that produces healing. But convictions still matter. They matter because sexual violence is so frequently denied, minimised and excused. They matter because women are repeatedly told that their cases are impossible to prove. They matter because powerful men are so often assumed to be untouchable.
And they matter because criminal accountability is different from public embarrassment, reputational damage or a financial settlement. A conviction is a legal finding of guilt. It carries a significance that cannot simply be dismissed because the convicted man has a wife, children, religious beliefs or a compelling story about his troubled past.
I am not going to perform sadness about a ten-and-a-half-year prison sentence simply to make other people comfortable. Nor am I going to pretend that the consequences for a convicted man are somehow more important than the sexual violence for which he was convicted.
And finally
I stand in solidarity with the women who gave evidence, including those whose allegations did not result in convictions, especially those women. It takes tremendous courage to report sexual violence, particularly when the accused is a wealthy, famous and powerful man. It takes courage to endure an investigation, face cross-examination and have intimate aspects of your life subjected to public scrutiny. And it takes courage to live with the consequences afterwards, regardless of the verdict.
I celebrated because women secured convictions in a criminal justice system that so often fails them. I celebrated because fame, wealth, public influence and masculine celebrity did not prevent criminal accountability. And I celebrated because, for once, the public narrative was not entirely controlled by the powerful man at its centre.
But I am also interested in what happens next. Because the cultural defence of men who commit sexual violence does not necessarily end when the legal defence fails. It can continue through images, language, family narratives, public sympathy and the mythology of redemption. We should be paying far more attention to that.
I long for a world in which men are too afraid to rape. Until then, I am not going to apologise for celebrating when a man is convicted of doing so. Not one fucking bit.
Suggested citation
Waring, Camille. 2026. ‘The Russell Brand Verdict: Why I Celebrated, and Why It Matters.’ Independent commentary, 10 November.
Waring, Camille. 2026. “The Russell Brand Verdict: Why I Celebrated, and Why It Matters.” Independent commentary, 10 November 2026.
© 2026 Dr Camille Waring. All rights reserved.
