‘Everyone knew it was toxic’: The mystery over Katy Perry’s dark Russell Brand secrets… as woman who met him in a sobriety programme reveals questions everyone is asking – and why more revelations are on the way

It was a devastating moment captured on film. Moments before taking to the stage in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Katy Perry – wearing a cartoonish dress adorned with spinning peppermint swirls – received a text from Russell Brand telling her their marriage was over.

The heartbreaking scene of her slumped in a chair and sobbing features in the singer’s 2012 documentary Part Of Me. She would later claim she cried with her head tilting purposefully downwards so her false eyelashes would not fall off before she walked on to the stage to be greeted by 40,000 screaming fans.

As far as toxic marriages go, Perry’s 14-month union to now convicted sex offender Brand, from October 2010 to New Year’s Eve the following year, is infamous in Hollywood as being ‘one of the worst of the worst’.

One woman who met Brand through an alcohol sobriety programme and knew him when he was with Perry said: ‘Hollywood is known for terrible dysfunctional relationships but Katy and Russell’s marriage, even back then, was known as being particularly toxic. Theirs is right up there with Brad and Angelina.’

As it emerges Perry is in ‘advanced talks’ with streamers including Netflix and Hulu to create a docuseries about her time with Brand, and is apparently planning a tell-all memoir, some have questioned what on earth has taken her so long?

In a 2013 interview with Vogue magazine the singer made the startling admission that she initially felt responsible for the marriage ending but added cryptically: ‘Then I found out the real truth, which I can’t necessarily disclose because I keep it locked in my safe for a rainy day.’

So what is hidden in that safe?

Last week it emerged Brand – jailed for ten years and six months for rape and sexual assault – is facing fresh sexual misconduct allegations from at least six more women in the UK and US.

One alleged victim accused Brand of attempting to pull her into a lavatory as recently as 2015 when he was in a relationship with Laura Gallacher, his now wife and the mother of his three children.

Police confirmed Perry was never questioned under oath or called to testify at his trial because the offences he was charged with took place between 2004 and 2009, prior to their marriage.

If he is hit with fresh charges in the UK or LA it is possible Perry may yet testify against the man she nicknamed ‘Rasputin’ after the long-haired sexually enigmatic ‘guru’ to the last Russian tsar.

The sobriety group source, who knew Brand when he met Perry in June 2009 on the set of his comedy film Get Him To The Greek, said: ‘You have to ask why Katy hasn’t told her story. It’s been years since she and Russell split.

‘She’s a strong woman. She’s made a big deal about advocating for women’s rights. There is a lot of talk in Hollywood about what she has in that safe and could it have prevented others from being victimised?’

While there is no suggestion Perry has done anything wrong – indeed some of those I spoke to last week claim she was in a coercive marriage and should be considered another of Brand’s ‘victims’ – it does beg the question of what she knew and when.

The source asks: ‘Did someone come forward during their marriage and claim he’d assaulted them? Did Katy find something on his phone? Why would she need to lock anything away for a rainy day? This is a woman with millions in the bank. It’s a big mystery.’

An even bigger mystery, to some, was what Katy ever saw in the loquacious and highly sexed comedian in the first place. A man who worked on Get Him To The Greek, made at the peak of Brand’s Hollywood career when he was earning a reported $5million per movie, said people were surprised when the pair announced they were a couple.

Brand, whose father Ron arranged for sex workers to ‘service’ his son during a holiday in the Far East when Brand was 17, never hid his promiscuity.

There was a joke in Hollywood in the 2000s – which has not aged well – that Brand ‘would hit on anything with a pulse’.

Even though he was sober from cocaine and alcohol from 2002 onwards, Brand was always leaving clubs with busty blonde starlets on his arm. At awards shows he would go from table to table chatting up pretty girls.

I remember one incident at the Golden Globes, around the time he was filming Arthur (the terrible remake of the Dudley Moore classic that bombed at the box office) when Brand hit on the wife of a studio executive and was threatened with ejection from the room until he smooth-talked his way out of it.

On set, Brand was no less lascivious. A crew member who worked on Arthur told the MoS: ‘He acted inappropriately almost all the time. His manager was warned, “You’d better get him under control, or he’s going to be sued.” His manager replied, “That’s already happened.” ’

A friend said: ‘Everyone knew Russell was a pig but no one suspected him of being a rapist. He hit on every pretty girl but he was a movie star; famous, rich and he had what Americans think of as a cute English accent, so we figured he was getting lots of action because of that.’

But by most standards Katy Perry, ten years Brand’s junior, was an odd choice. The daughter of two Pentecostal ministers who eventually founded their own evangelical church, she was raised in a strict home in Santa Barbara, a wealthy beach enclave two hours north of Los Angeles.

Perry has spoken about living in a house where people ‘spoke in tongues’ and originally launched her career as a gospel singer under her real name, Katheryn Hudson, before switching to mainstream pop music in 2008.

When she had her breakout hit I Kissed A Girl, I called her mother who lambasted her daughter for singing about such ‘wicked’ ways.

The woman who met Perry through Brand’s sobriety group said: ‘Katy was a character. She’d had this weird religious background and there was something naive about her. She came across as quirky and sweet, very talented, but not someone who was obsessed by sex like Russ was. We were shocked when they got together. We assumed it was a case of opposites attracting.’

The couple wed after a ‘tornado’ courtship at the Aman-i-Khas resort in Ranthambore tiger park in Rajasthan, India, in October 2010. The guest list now makes for sobering reading as it included David Walliams and P Diddy (one accused of grooming girls as young as 15, although he denies any wrongdoing, the other convicted of sex offences) as well as celebrities such as Noel Gallagher, Rihanna and Jonathan Ross.

By that time Brand had a ‘guru’, a yogi called Tej Kaur Khalsa, who worked out of a fitness studio in a rather innocuous strip mall at the end of my street in LA. I remember approaching Tej around the time of the wedding. Draped in flowing white robes she described Brand as a ‘wonderful spiritual man’ but declined to give any further details saying: ‘We have a special bond and I would never betray that. He’s like a child to me.’

The comedian, for his part, called Tej one of the most ‘influential’ people in his life.

Back then he would go to at least two sobriety group meetings a day, one at a place called The Log Cabin on Robertson Boulevard and another in an upstairs room in a club off Sunset Boulevard.

After their wedding, Brand and Perry lived in a 5,000 sq ft home in the trendy Los Feliz area and then bought a magnificent 17,000 sq ft nine-bedroom home called Park Hill Estate in the Hollywood Hills.

But their relationship was odd.

During a red carpet appearance at the 2010 Vanity Fair Oscars party, an ITV reporter asked Perry for her thoughts on the award winners only for Brand to hold up a badge that read: ‘OBEY.’ Perry fell silent and Brand took over the interview.

Shortly after their wedding he posted a photograph of his bleary-eyed, make-up free wife in bed.

The friend from the sobriety group said: ‘Katy is someone who never goes out in public without her “face” on. She’s very professional and I remember talking to her about how she felt it was her duty to always look a certain way in case her fans, who she adores, came up and wanted a picture.

‘I can only imagine how devastated she must have felt when Russ posted a picture of her in bed looking terrible.’

Perry said at the time: ‘He thought it was hilarious but as you can imagine I wasn’t too impressed.’

For her part, Perry has spoken about the balance of power shifting in their relationship during their 14-month marriage.

When they met, Brand was at the peak of his Hollywood career. But his movie Arthur was a flop and his behaviour had started to turn Hollywood studios off. One executive said: ‘This was way before #MeToo but Hollywood has always been woke. Brand got a reputation as a bad one.’

He’d hold court at expat parties in the Hollywood Hills, but his loudness and vulgarity began to wear thin. ‘Word got around as it always does. He was a liability waiting to happen. No one turned on him because he was molesting women. They turned on him because his movies flopped and he was a loose cannon.’

Perry then brought out her third album Teenage Dream in 2010, which contained five global number ones, including Firework and California Gurls (featuring rapper Snoop Dogg). Teenage Dream sold 12million copies worldwide and topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

A person who worked on the album said: ‘It kicked Katy into the stratosphere. We immediately planned a world tour with a documentary to be filmed alongside it.

‘Russell didn’t come to a single concert that I recall.

‘Katy wanted that marriage to work. We’d get four days off between concerts and she would fly back to LA to see him and then come back to South America or Europe or wherever we were, totally jet-lagged and exhausted.’

Perry said: ‘I think a lot of times strong men do want an equal but then they get that equal and there’s like, “I can’t handle the equalness”. He didn’t like the atmosphere of me being the boss on tour. So that was really hurtful and it was very controlling, which was upsetting.’

Another associate said Brand was anxious to start a family, something Perry (who now has a daughter, Daisy, six, with ex-fiance Orlando Bloom) was not ready for at the time.

‘Katy’s career was booming. Her records were going platinum. Russ’s career was on a downward spiral, it wasn’t time for her to have a kid,’ the associate said.

And so Perry embarked on her world tour, leaving Brand home alone in LA.

He dumped her by text as she prepared to go on stage in Sao Paulo, something one person on the tour called ‘the cruellest thing I’ve ever seen’.

Brand and Perry did not have a prenuptial agreement. A legal source said: ‘Brand could have taken her for half of her tour earnings. She was on the road for a year of their marriage. To his credit he didn’t ask her for a penny.’

Perry never spoke to Brand again after being dumped by text. She went on to have a long relationship with Pirates Of The Caribbean star Bloom (who ‘taught me to trust again’) and is now dating former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Sources say Trudeau and Perry may be secretly engaged already and planning a wedding next year. ‘They are a great couple. He supports her totally,’ one said last night. ‘Katy got her happy ending.’

In July, Perry made no bones about Brand’s guilt.

Appearing at the Blenheim Festival in Oxfordshire, she was playing an interactive game with her fans when someone asked how she would feel if she saw her ex.

In a flash she replied: ‘I hope my ex isn’t here. He should be in jail.’

As for what evidence she might have in her safe? Only time – and a Netflix deal – will tell.