Berliner Abendpost - UK comedian Russell Brand pleads not guilty to new rape, assault charges

Brand, once a left-leaning political campaigner who has rebranded himself as a conservative guru to millions of social media followers, arrived at Southwark crown court court carrying a copy of the Bible.

He wore a leopard-print shirt and dark coat.

Brand denied charges of sexually assaulting a woman in London in 2009, and raping another women in the same year, also in the British capital.

His bail was renewed at the end of a brief hearing and he is due to face trial in June.

The 50-year-old is facing sexual offence charges involving a total of six women, according to UK police.

He pleaded not guilty in May to five other charges relating to four women -- one count of rape, one of oral rape, two of sexual assault and one of indecent assault between 1999 and 2005.

"These new charges are in relation to two further women and are in addition to the charges issued to Brand in April 2025 which involved four women," London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement in December.

Born in 1975 to working-class parents in Essex, east of London, Brand began his stand-up career as a teenager, eventually working as an MTV presenter and host of a reality TV series.

He presented a show on the BBC's Radio 2 station between 2006 and 2008, but quit after an on-air prank when he left a sexually explicit voicemail for "Fawlty Towers" actor Andrew Sachs about his granddaughter.

M.Wilke--BlnAP