WASHINGTON — Comedian Russell Brand, ex-husband of singer Katy Perry, moderated a panel at the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) summit and made a head-turning joke ahead of his rape trial next month.
In response to a slight delay in Brand taking the stage to steer a panel on reforms to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), its administrator, Dr. Mehmet Oz, noted that the comedian had been hugging Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins backstage.
“She initiated that contact; I should make clear,” Brand said to laughs.
The quip comes as Brand is set to stand trial starting Oct. 12 in the United Kingdom on multiple charges over accusations of rape, oral rape, sexual assault, and assault from six different women spanning 1999 through the 2000s.
Brand has vehemently denied the accusations and pleaded not guilty, insisting he never did anything nonconsensual. He was released on conditional bail last year.
“I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord. I was a drug addict, a sex addict and an imbecile,” the comedian admitted in a video response after the charges were first lodged against him.
“But what I never was, was a rapist. I’ve never engaged in nonconsensual activity. I pray that you can see that by looking in my eyes.”
Earlier this year, Brand also copped to having what he described as consensual intercourse with a 16-year-old girl. At the time, he was 30 years old, and he reflected that it was “exploitative” despite 16 being the age of consent in the UK at the time.
One woman accused Brand of raping her without protection at her home in Los Angeles around 2012, according to a joint report by The Sunday Times and Channel 4.
Brand has been a proponent of the MAHA movement.
Fellow celebrity and former boxing heavyweight champion Mike Tyson also attended the summit to participate in a panel on brain damage.
Tyson was convicted of raping 18-year-old Desiree Washington in the 1990s and served three years behind bars for it.
The MAHA summit was intended to gather key figures in the movement to tout accomplishments made over the past year and the agenda going forward.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Cheryl Hines, and Vice President JD Vance were also slated to speak at the conference held in the DC Waldorf Astoria.
