Russell Brand's wife Laura Gallacher is fully behind the comedian as he battles to clear his name of "rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse".
These criminal allegations first emerged last Friday, with the 48 year old himself pre-empting a Dispatches programme on Channel 4 – combining an investigation by The Times, Sunday Times and the broadcaster – which went to air the following evening. They include the harming of four individuals; assault of a British schoolgirl and the raping of a woman in Los Angeles.
He revealed in a YouTube video: "I’ve received two extremely disturbing letters… listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks…
"Amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute. These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies.
"As I’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very very promiscuous. During that time of promiscuity the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual."
In light of this news, Russell's other half and mother to his two children, 36, is said to be standing by him.
"What Russell did was firmly in the past, way before he and Laura met. Of course it isn't easy but they are determined to get through this," a friend told The Daily Mail.
"[The family is] very close and supporting Laura through this. Russell is going nowhere."
The couple's romance was a rollercoaster to say the least, with Laura having only just split up with a former partner before bumping into the famous ladies man.
"My ex had literally moved out of our flat that day and I was heartbroken, with mascara running down my face. A friend dragged me out on a walk to the canal in East London, where I'd never been in my life, and as we came on to the footpath Russell was standing there, like he'd organised it," she once recalled.
"I hadn't seen Russell for years. He was so different. We both immediately knew it was going to be serious."
As this story continues to unfold, here's what else Russell had to say in his recorded defence:
"I don't mind [the media] using my books and my stand-up to talk about my promiscuous consensual conduct in the past. What I seriously refute are these very, very serious criminal allegations.
"Also, it's worth mentioning that there are witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narrative that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct, apparently, in what seems to me to be a coordinated attack."
Signing off, the Forgetting Sarah Marshall actor went on to comment: "Now, I don't wanna get into this any further because of the serious nature of the allegations, but I feel like I'm being attacked and plainly they're working very closely together. We are obviously going to look into this matter 'cause it's very, very serious."
The foreign secretary James Cleverly subsequently referenced "sharp differentials in power" during his talk on BBC One's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, suggesting that this investigation should inspire early interventions in the future, especially in the entertainment industry.
"I think there are some real challenges where you have these very, very acute differentials in power, whether that be in the entertainment industry, whether that be in politics, and we see this in the commercial world as well," he told the host.
"I think we have to be particularly careful when we listen to the voices of the people who are relatively powerless because we, I think, collectively have missed opportunities to do the right thing and intervene much, much earlier, and we’ve got to be better at this."
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