SARAH VINE: Russell Brand  was a grubby weirdo with bird’s nest hair. What is it about the female psyche that made beautiful, successful women ignore his walking, talking red flags? I think I know…

Many years ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to an evening at Jemima Goldsmith’s country house in the Cotswolds.

Everything was effortlessly elegant: roaring fires, big floppy dogs on the sofa, stylish furnishings, fantastic company.

She was the epitome of the high society hostess: witty, totally at ease and fabulous in every way.

That’s why, when I heard shortly afterwards that she was dating Russell Brand, I was completely baffled.

Why on earth would someone as classy as Goldsmith even entertain a loathsome little low-rent toad like that? It just seemed inconceivable to me. I think I even wrote that in one of my columns: needless to say, I was not invited back.

Now, over a decade on from that ill-fated romance, Goldsmith has shared shocking details of her relationship with the convicted sex offender, who last week was found guilty on one count of rape and three of sexual assault, and sentenced on Monday to more than 10 years in jail.

Goldsmith has done well to quell online speculation over a harassment order which she and Brand took out jointly in September 2014 against massage therapist Szilvia Berki; but she makes no defence of her ex-lover. ‘I am going to describe some painful and personal things in relation to Russell Brand,’ she wrote on X on Monday.

‘I have had my own personal experience of his violence, coercive control and abuse. I had to call the police to have him removed from my house in 2014 during a violent incident.’

Meanwhile, footage of the pop star Katy Perry, who married Brand in 2010 after a whirlwind romance, is doing the rounds online. She is lying backstage in her dressing room, sobbing, just moments before she’s due to perform in front of thousands of adoring fans.

Brand has just dumped her by text. At the precise moment of her greatest success, he has chosen, deliberately, to bring her crashing back down to earth.

Textbook, weapons-grade narcissism. She was heartbroken – although Perry has since revised her opinion. In June this year, during a live performance at the Blenheim Festival in Oxfordshire, she told the audience: ‘I hope my ex isn’t here. He ought to be in jail.’

And then there’s Brand’s current wife, who is clearly utterly besotted with him and – for now, at least – blind to the realities of who she married.

Laura grew up on the Wentworth Estate in Surrey and is the daughter of Scottish golfing legend and former Ryder Cup champion Bernard Gallacher. She first met Brand when she was just 19. She is, by all accounts, a very likeable woman and mother to his three children. The question is, why? Why do beautiful, successful, talented, big-hearted women end up with men like Brand? All three of these women could have had anyone they wanted – and yet they chose this grubby weirdo with bird’s nest hair and the morals of an alley cat. What is that all about?

They weren’t the only ones, either. I know from conversations with friends in TV that there were many other less famous but equally talented and successful women along the way, who found themselves in thrall to this man’s dubious charms. Women who were tough as nails in their professional lives but who would turn into dribbling idiots the moment he walked into a studio. At every turn, his openly outrageous and overtly sexual behaviour seemed not only to go unchallenged but was even rewarded: with fame, fortune and endless offers of work.

Indeed, it must have seemed to Brand that the nastier he was, the more women loved him.

What is it about the female psyche that is drawn to men like Brand? What is it that makes us ignore the red flags and obvious signs of danger – and allow these sorts of predators to enter our lives? It’s not as though Brand made any bones about the kind of person he was. He never made any attempt to conceal his true nature – indeed, if anything it was his calling card.

I think the answer is that danger is a powerful aphrodisiac, even more powerful if one lives a relatively conventional, structured, even sheltered existence.

It’s what drew Victorian readers to wild, vengeful Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights; it’s what fuelled the success of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a rotting, depraved corpse who somehow manages to remain eternally seductive to innocent young women.

It’s the same with cinema: think of Marlon Brando in The Wild One, Brad Pitt in Fight Club, or Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean – on whom Brand arguably modelled his sartorial choices and exuberant delivery.

The entire blues/rock ‘n’ roll canon is pretty much based on the same premise, from Muddy Waters to Mick Jagger and everyone in between. Nice guys finish last; bad guys get the girl.

In fact, the whole idea of ‘treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen’ was crystallised in a book published in 2005, around the time of Brand’s rise to fame. The Game, by Neil Strauss, exposed the strange world of the underground ‘seduction community’, a secretive male subculture dedicated to practising certain psychological techniques to seduce the kind of women who would not normally have given them a second glance.

Brand was a keen student of Strauss. In fact, he credited the book for his success with women and the development of his ‘shamanic seducer’ character, saying: ‘Strauss’s writing turned me from a desperate wallflower into a wallflower who can talk women into sex’. Some of the techniques explored included concepts such as ‘negging’ (backhanded compliments designed to undermine a woman’s confidence) and ‘peacocking’ (cultivating an eccentric or flamboyant look to stand out): all familiar Brand behaviours.

The lifestyle the book prescribes was a precursor to what is today known as the highly misogynistic manosphere, led by the likes of Andrew Tate and others (also, no coincidence, accused of multiple sexual assaults). Strauss himself later turned his back on the whole thing, rightly concluding that the premise was fuelled by deep-seated male insecurity, not to mention a highly dubious perception of the opposite sex.

Of course, not every brash chat-up line leads to dangerous or unwanted behaviour. But if someone has no boundaries and no fear of repercussions, that is when things can go badly wrong.

This is what happened in Brand’s case. His conviction hinged on the notion and nature of consent, the point at which the bad-boy fantasy becomes a terrifying, unwanted reality. It hinges on that moment where a line is crossed, control is lost – and the fun, such as it is, stops.

Brand, like far too many others, is not the kind of rapist who jumps on someone in the dead of night and drags them away by their hair. He represents a different kind of danger, one all too prevalent, especially – as we have seen in recent years with other famous faces – in the high-octane world of entertainment (now the comedian David Walliams also stands accused of predatory behaviour, although it’s important to note that he has not been charged with anything).

Brand’s kind is the rapist seducer, the one who plays the game until he has you where he wants you – then flips the narrative before you’ve even realised what’s going on. He’s the kind who hides in plain sight, who has you questioning your instincts, drawing you in even though every cell in your body is screaming ‘run’. By the time you say ‘no’, it’s already too late and, once it’s over, he has you questioning your judgment, blaming yourself, wondering how you ever allowed yourself to let it happen.

To add to the hurt and trauma, there is the shame, self-loathing and a deep-down sense of failure. I think that is what one of his victims was referring to when she said: ‘I didn’t have respect for myself.’ That is exactly what men like Brand want. It’s how they ensure their victims’ silence.

That, and blaming others for their own depraved actions, as Brand did when he snapped at the 21-year-old fan he had just defiled and told her to ‘clean up her own mess’.

It’s important to remember: any act of non-consensual sex is a) assault and b) not the victim’s fault, however naive, gullible or intoxicated they may be. This case underlines that basic truth.

Let’s hope it focuses the minds of men like Brand out there; but also, it should serve as a salutary reminder to all women to think twice before succumbing to the so-called charms of a narcissist in tight trousers and guyliner.