My sickening encounter with rapist Russell Brand: How he told me he wanted a baby with me – and my sister – six months after his wedding to Katy Perry: JONICA BRAY

When Russell Brand’s rape conviction came up in our morning news meeting this week, I glanced around the table: nearly every woman shook her head, and we all knew why.

Three of us had covered celebrity news for years – trading war stories about diva tantrums, drunken chaos, and interviews so disastrous they were better fodder for the office than the page.

But this morning, it hit us: we’d all met Brand. 

‘I had a terrifying encounter with that man,’ Senior Reporter Karleigh Smith revealed. 

‘I had a run‑in with him in LA and it still gives me chills,’ another female colleague added.

‘Yeah, I’ve got a creepy Russell Brand story too,’ I chimed in.

What’s disturbing is that we’d all crossed paths with him during the same period -between 2006 and 2013, when he was accused and, later, convicted of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse.

My encounter was in April 2011, just six months after Brand married Katy Perry in Rajasthan, India. He was in Sydney to promote Arthur, the comedy remake where he played the lead.

He held a press conference at The Ivy on April 14 and attended the Australian premiere at Event Cinemas, Bondi Junction, the following day.

At the time, I was working for a glossy women’s magazine, and Brand had been on our radar ever since he started dating Katy.

I’m a Brit myself and I really liked him. I was so excited to interview him on the red carpet that I even invited my younger sister along.

I remember us waving frantically to catch his attention as he was escorted past the media, stopping for the odd photo and saying a few words for the TV cameras.

I couldn’t believe my luck when we made eye contact and he wandered over. Better still, his PR team seemed distracted, so he came over alone.

His team were there to promote the movie, but I wanted something more personal – preferably something about his new wife.

As he came closer, he fixed those unmistakable wide eyes on the two of us. The intensity caught me off guard.

‘Hey Russell, congrats on the movie and your recent wedding to Katy,’ I began, keeping one eye on his team across the carpet.

He didn’t say a word. He just leant in closer, close enough that I could feel his breath on my face.

‘I’m with Woman’s Day and this is my sister,’ I continued, nodding towards her. ‘We are from Cornwall.’

‘I was wondering if you had thought about babies… starting a family? If you had baby plans?’

He paused and slowly looked us both up and down.

‘Babies,’ he said, half smirking and licking his lips.

I felt a little embarrassed. ‘Yeah babies, with Katy,’ I clarified as he continued his intense stare for a while longer.

‘Or with sisters?’ he asked.

I’m not going to lie. At the time, we thought it was kind of funny and we were enjoying the attention. He was a famous comedian, newly married to an international superstar, and it felt like a big deal that he was talking to us at all.

‘Have babies with us? Like both of us?’ I asked, giggling and he slowly nodded.

He asked if we were going to the premiere screening and the after-party. I explained we only had red carpet access.

Then he asked where we were going afterwards. He said he wanted to talk more about ‘having babies with sisters’, and questioned if we really were ‘sisters from Cornwall’.

I kept expecting him to crack a smile so we could all laugh at the joke. He never did. He just kept staring at us, licking his lips.

It kind of stopped feeling funny by then. We didn’t have any plans for after and when we said we were going home, he did that little half smirk again. 

Eventually his team came over and ushered him along for more photos. That was it.

By December, they had split. Perry later told Vogue that Brand had told her he was divorcing her in a text.

I didn’t think much about that night again until the rape allegations became public in 2023. Then I learnt that a separate allegation involved Arthur, the very film he’d been in Sydney to promote.

In November 2023, a film extra sued Brand in New York, alleging he exposed himself to her during filming in Manhattan in July 2010 and later sexually assaulted her in a bathroom. Brand has denied ever engaging in non-consensual sex. A January 2026 ruling in the civil case dealt with expert evidence.

Looking back now and having heard so many details during the court case – like when Brand’s former assistant told the jury he used to finish shows in Edinburgh by telling women in the audience which pub he’d be at afterwards – it feels a lot less harmless. 

Brand himself told the jury he had used his fame to ‘facilitate sexual access’ and one of his victims said she was invited to an after party after he singled her out in the hotel foyer.

One colleague told me she met him at a club in West Hollywood around 2010 and while they only briefly crossed paths she never forgot it.

‘I was introduced to Brand in the VIP section, he looked me up and down and called me a ‘naughty scullery maid’,’ she said.

‘He was creepy but also rude when he said it, like I was some piece of s**t.’

She also revealed she met him once more years later but by then he was with Katy and it was all polite chit-chat.

My other colleague Karleigh met Brand in 2012, a year after I did. She was 25, on her first trip to Los Angeles and also working as a celebrity reporter for Woman’s Day.

She was giddy with excitement after scoring a last-minute invite to sit in the studio audience for the season two premiere of Rove LA in Burbank. The guests were Kristen Schaal, Adam Lambert and Russell Brand.

‘After a quick meet and greet with McManus in the green room, we were shown to prime front-row seats, directly across from where Brand would take his place on the couch,’ she remembered.

‘Before taping began, Brand sauntered out, and mingled with the audience. At one point he towered over me, and began chattering in his usual nonsensical style.

‘I don’t remember what he said, because I was, rather embarrassingly now I look back on it, starstruck.

‘But after that it got weird.’

She said Brand seemed to keep trying to catch her eye as he lounged on Rove’s couch, making jokes about ‘rug munching’, anal sex and ‘spanking zoo monkeys while masturbating’.

‘Don’t get me wrong, at first it was a thrill. Occasionally I met his gaze,’ she remembered.

‘I was a young, single woman enjoying my first encounter with Hollywood stardom, and was already excited to tell my mates back in Sydney about the ‘moment’ I felt I was sharing with Brand.

‘But eventually, instinct took over, and I began to feel uneasy about the intensity with which he was looking at me, especially in the context of the lewd comments he was making.’

And like me, years later, hearing testimonies read out to the jury made her think again about that night.

‘Now that Brand’s modus operandi for picking out women from audiences has come to light in court, I can’t help but wonder if that inexperienced journo who was falling in love with Hollywood and all its trappings had a lucky escape,’ she said.

‘I recall being slightly relieved – but unsure why – when we left soon after the show was over.’

We are not sharing our encounters because we think we are special with these experiences.

Given what we know, there must be hundreds if not thousands of girls with stories similar to ours who are left considering how differently things could have turned out.

And we all deeply admire his victims who have bravely spoken out to ensure he’s not able to do this again for a very long time.