Netflix documentary director makes chilling admission about fear surrounding Russell Brand
A Netflix director has come out to reveal why it was difficult to investigate Russell Brand for its latest rise and fall documentary, after the comedian was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Brand was sentenced to 10 years and six months at London's Southwark Crown Court on 9 November after being found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault.
The 51-year-old faced seven charges stemming from accusations made by six women between 2004 and 2009.
Brand had denied all throughout the four-week trial.
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However, after eight hours of deliberations, Brand was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman during at a Soho bar in 2004.
He was also found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at Choice FM studios in London in either 2004 or 2005.
Further to the above, he was found guilty of raping a woman after meeting her at a 2009 stand-up show at the Hammersmith Apollo, and sexually assaulting a woman working on a project at Channel 4 in 2009.
In light of the major case, Russell Brand: Open Secret, is a documentary which takes a deep dive into the allegations, his past, and previous relationship and also includes testimony from ex-partners and fellow comedians.
However, just hours after the doc dropped on Netflix, director Olivia Isaacs revealed to Variety that it wasn’t easy making it.
She revealed she began working on it in November 2023, just two months after the allegations came to light.
Whilst victims came out against Brand and some saw the comedian charged in their cases, Isaacs revealed that it wasn’t easy finding people who were willing to come out against him.
She said: “As we all know, there’s been a landscape of fear. It’s been a litigious minefield for many years, reporting anything on Brand. So despite some people coming forward, everyone was still in that mindset. It wasn’t definitely easy.”
She added: “’Easy’ would never be the word I’d use for this. It took a lot of building trust and a lot of conversations, and even then, many people didn’t feel comfortable. There were a lot of nerves and fear, and they’d been in their minds silenced up until now, or had signed NDAs, or you know, there were lots of complexities to it. So it was a slow process of speaking to as many people as possible.”
As for those she said were close with Brand, such as the ‘agents, exec producers, people who are minding the talent’ and ‘people giving him the work,’ she claimed they were not willing to be on camera for her doc.
She said: “I mean, of course, for me as a filmmaker, I’d always like to hold people to account as well and hear from that side and unfortunately those people did not want to sit in front of the camera and take accountability.”
Topics: Russell Brand, Celebrity, Crime, Netflix
Britt Jones
