← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
Russell Brand on His Upcoming Trial and Past Mistakes, Addiction, His Past Marriage to Katy Perry, and Finding God
02:20:40
Megyn Kelly is joined by Russell Brand, author, "How to Become a Christian in 7 Days," to discuss the upsides and downsides of fame and success, their connection back at NBC, the allegations against him as he awaits his October trial, the truth about his past sexual actions, his acknowledgement of his previous behavior and the reality of consent, the “thousands" of women he has slept with, his drug and sex addictions, finding God and what his faith means to him now, his upcoming trial over sexual allegations, the difference between immoral and criminal behavior, the way the “empire” and elites want to keep us all divided, their fear that if we unite we'll be able to acquire more power than they have, the shocking alleged connection between the Southern Poverty Law Center and Charlottesville and new DOJ indictment, how Alex Jones got some big things right, why Donald Trump rose to power, Megyn’s evolving relationship with Donald Trump over the years, the fraud of the two-party syste...
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- [00:00]
Russell Brand
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Megyn Kelly
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Russell Brand
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Megyn Kelly
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Russell Brand
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Megyn Kelly
be sure to check out all the special offers. Tirerack.com, the way Tire buying should be. K Pop Demon Hunters, Saja Boy's Breakfast Meal and Hunt Tricks Meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja Boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day.
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Russell Brand
It is an honor to share.
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Megyn Kelly
No, it's our honor.
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Russell Brand
It is our larger honor.
- [00:50]
Megyn Kelly
No, really stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side and participate in McDonald's while supplies last. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show and what a show we have for you today. Russell Brand is here and this is going to be unlike anything you've ever seen here on the MK Show. We first met Sam several years ago on my set at NBC where he came out and at the time was full of energy and a huge star and even back then I remember said something like, you're far less polarizing than people tell me you are. And we bonded immediately. He's of course a British comedian, he's an actor, he's a media personality, and he knows a thing or two about being polarizing. Now himself, unfortunately, rising to fame back in the 2000s as a standup comic and landing high profile roles in Hollywood films like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get him to the Greek. Not to mention the animated blockbusters Despicable, Despicable Me, Trolls and Minions. He appeared on TV shows, comedy programs and landed on the front cover of the Rolling Stone. How about that? As an iconic image of him. And he was further catapulted into the headlines with his high profile marriage to pop star Katy Perry. Everyone wanted to know every detail about their lives. They were one of the it couples of the decade until the marriage ended a couple of years later in divorce. In recent years, he's reinvented himself as a host and a commentator, amassing millions of followers and content focused on politics, media criticism and what he describes as threats to free speech, particularly during the COVID pandemic where he was absolutely fearless questioning government policies, big pharma and mainstream narratives in a way few were and it was bold and it was noticed by the British government. Brand has also spoken openly about his personal turn towards spirituality and Christianity, saying that his faith has given him a sense of peace after years of struggling with various forms of addiction about which he is very open. But there have been some serious allegations against Russell too, and he is set to go on trial in the UK later this year. We're going to get into that as well. Nothing's off the table today as the investigations and public debate continue about him. He he remains as outspoken as ever and now he's out with a brand new book. It's called how to Become a Christian in seven days may take 50 years of sin and Serious Fuck Ups to get started is the subtitle, which is pretty spectacular. Great title. Here's a question for you. How many brokers does it take to insure your business? If you're like most business owners, the answer is too many. Multiple policies, multiple applications, and no clear view of how it all fits together. And when questions come up, it's not easy to get the clarity you need at all. No one's there for you. But super sure changes that. A one stop shop for all of your business insurance backed by a team that works with you year round, not just at renewal. You are not a burden to them. They will take care of you. They want you to be happy. And if you've ever stared at a policy wondering what it actually covers, super sure has a fine print facts tool that translates the legal jargon into plain English so you know what's covered and what's not. It's not some shell game that they seem to be enjoying playing at your expense right now. You can go to super sure.com and get a full report on your current policies with no obligation. Find out if you're overinsured, underinsured or somewhere in between. Go to supersure.com or one super agency. One powerful platform. All your policies in one place. Imagine it. Go to super sure.commegan today. That's super sure.commegan. paid for by Super Sure Insurance Agency, LLC, a licensed insurance agency. Russell Brand joins me live here in the Red Studio. Great to see you.
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Russell Brand
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
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Megyn Kelly
Thanks for coming. Okay, so it's. It's been a while. What has it been, eight years since we last saw each other?
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Russell Brand
Yes, I remember in where you Were in the culture then is I feel that you've previously been on Fox and then you came on to having your own show. And I feel like it was you moving from being a news oriented person to let's have a daytime version of you with celebrities and the culture. But I feel like there's a lot of kind of excitement around you at that time. And so while I was preparing, I mean, sort of mentally and spiritually to come and meet you, I was thinking that both of us have moved through the culture in ways that are comparable, have been very close to its sort of, what one might call it, center. Because I was going to use the word heart, but heart doesn't seem quite the right word for the culture because heart is perhaps what it's most lacking. And it's exciting and interesting to speak with you because I know that you will recognize themes and trends that I've experienced.
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Megyn Kelly
Yes, very much so. I mean, watching your evolution has been very interesting to me because I didn't know you other than as a celebrity back then. But when you came onto the set, you had so much energy, positive energy. You were so kind. And I was in the midst of a terrible year there because it didn't go well for me at NBC. I wasn't liked by virtually any celebrities and yet I found myself immersed in them. And it was so rare to have somebody come on the set and be so nice to me and like, so complimentary. And I remember being like, I love Russell Brand. And actually somebody asked me a couple years after that who was my favorite celebrity, who I met, you know, in my time at Fox and NBC. And I said, Russell Brand, because you were so warm, you were so nice. You acknowledged the thing about being polarizing. You said, you're actually quite lovely. And I remember we had a laugh over it. And now, you know, as I've watched you go through your, you know, past few years and become this scourge of a certain section, I feel for you because they're doing it to you. Same stuff they've done to me. As soon as you get political, especially right wing political boy, they come for you.
- [07:04]
Russell Brand
Are you able then, I wonder, Meghan, to whilst. Because I suppose the impression I had when I met you, I was wondering why I would have a prejudice before meeting you. Where would I have gotten that from? And I suppose there are some assigned cultural figures that you're allowed to like if you're a participant in the culture. And then there are other people that are meant to be kind of pariah or that you're not meant to approve of or like. And I reckon, I suppose that I came in there as part of a Hollywood liberal set even though like that kind of liberalism would not be the values that I grew up with. In a way what I'm starting to feel now is a connection to actually where I'm from and kind of who I've always been. That when you get sort of pulled into fame it does an interesting thing to you because any sense of deficiency, inferiority can be sort of temporarily medicated by the attention, the soothing balms. The soothing balms of synthetic glory. Like if they will give you a kind of. You're amazing. Because in addition it's not like everybody didn't like you an NBC. You were sort of a glorious enough individual to have your own sort of show and everything. And I started so you know, I. What I'm going through now is acknowledging and addressing what I. How I have contributed to the conditions that I am experiencing and what lessons are available and they're pretty obvious and pretty evident. The complexity only being in the small portion that that is framed by illegality and criminality. There's a very small margin. Almost everything else I would entirely agree
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Megyn Kelly
with own and you've been self reflective on I want to talk to you about so much of it because my next phase of you while I watched you during COVID and I loved all that and I thought you got. He's gotten very brave and very outspoken in a great way. Then came all the allegations, the sexual. Alleged sexual assault and rape. And so papa. And it first came in this UK quote documentary and they use that term very loosely there and here. And I'll tell you up front, I was angry when I saw that because they did it in such a compelling way that especially the stuff about the 16 year old that I was angry with you I believed what they said or at least believed that there was enough smoke, there might be fire and said to the audience at the time, you know the conservative movement doesn't need somebody like that. Like we love what he's saying about COVID but if this is a guy who's sexually assaulting women and taking advantage of 16 year olds, we need to move on without him. And felt that anger for a couple of years around you because I just thought it was so reckless and it was so wrong and I knew that it might be false but it seemed overwhelming the way that they presented the evidence. And then the more I looked at it the more I started to recognize I might not know the full story because since then I have seen what the British government has done, what my own government has done to certain figures that it doesn't like. And I have an enormous amount of open mindedness to. You are being railroaded and attacked by people for reasons having nothing to do with actual facts. But with your right leaning stance on certain issues, your growing prominence as a figure in a bunch of discussions that they find very threatening. And honestly, I just reevaluated the whole thing and thought I need to be open minded to having been wrong in my initial assessments. And I'm interested in a conversation about it all.
- [10:35]
Russell Brand
Thank you Meg and Kelly for giving me the grace to address in particular your anger, which is entirely legitimate and recognizable. And the plain fact of it is, is that in Europe and in the United Kingdom where I'm from, the age of consent is 16. And I did sleep with a 16 year old when I was 30. But when I was 30 I was a very different person. I was a lot younger and I was an immature 30 year old. Consensual sex, actually with a variety of people, when there is a strong power differential as there is when you're a famous man that has the ability to attract women that I had at that time, I think involves exploitation. I think it is exploitative. I recognize that my sexual conduct in the past was selfish and I didn't, I did not apply enough consideration, barely any, I suppose, really, to how that sex was affecting other people. The only matter that I would contest while acknowledging, firstly, you're right to be angry with as a woman who, given what I know about you and the industry you've worked in, I'm sure that you have personal reasons for feeling aggrieved towards powerful men. Because in spite of occasionally men coming to the forefront of the culture, whether it's the most hideous gargoyle villains as rendered and portrayed or the more sort of innocuous and party boy style exploits of women, a category that I suppose I must fall into. It's a. It's plainly something that exists within our industry and one might say culture at large. While I was transgressing lines of being a person that was sleeping with people because I had availability to, not only, by the way, waitresses and strippers and fans and people, but like, you know, powerful women as well, like powerful professional women that had gravitas and status and power, I was only really thinking of myself. And obviously this is, I have to be careful of contempt of court because that's a law in my country where I can't say Anything publicly that might in any way influence a potential jury. But obviously, as soon as I've said I'm not guilty, why I'm in effect saying is I had consensual sex with lots of. Lots of women. And you can argue that that's not appropriate. But the age of consent is an important thing. The ability to consent is an important thing. Like that is drunk people can't consent. Mentally ill people can't consent. Children can't consent. Consent is what's important. And what fame gave me and what addiction fueled was opportunity for endless consent, which led me to be a hedonist and a fool and an exploiter of women. And that is wrong. And that is something that needs to be redeemed and addressed and atoned for. What I'm obviously not only querying, but violently or aggressively or assertively opposing is the idea that this is a judicial criminal matter where consent was overridden. Actually, what happened was, is consent was directed. That's what being famous and being, if I may say, forgive me, charismatic affords you is the ability to direct consent. That doesn't mean it's right. It's actually not right. It's wrong. It's a sin. It's an expression of selfishness and false idolatry. I provided a lot of material through my foolishness and my selfishness around women. That meant that when I became not a person, that was celebrated by the culture as a representative of individualism, hedonism. You're the most important thing in world. There's no essentially acting like, if there is a God, you're it. That's what the culture wants you to believe. It doesn't want you to have a higher, higher authority to which you submit that none of us have control over that we don't. Actually. We're not the final say on what's right and wrong. God is the final say. Now I have a trial. So in that trial, I'll have the opportunity, as will people that feel wronged against, to achieve justice. And I have no problem in praying for absolute justice and the best possible outcome for everyone involved. Indeed, that is my prayer, Megan, because however I look at this or carve this up, there are people that feel hurt enough to participate in this venture. Now, as to the second part of what you're saying, why did it happen when it happened? Because a documentary was made that framed my very explicit public behavior in a particular way. I believe that there is a strong connection between when it happened and what I was doing publicly. I'd moved from being acting in movies and being on TV and writing books and essentially advocating for the kind of cultural values that most people within the institutions of power and entity entertainment power endorse and espouse to being quite critical of them, openly critical of the pharmaceutical industry, the British government, bureaucratic agencies that have unelected power that we often are taxed for and are funding and. And in Covid, I really started to find a voice for something I'd long felt that real power is inaccessible to ordinary people. I'd gone into a lot of controversy and trouble in around 2015 when I was thinking of running for mayor of London, when I'd said there's no point voting for anybody because whoever you vote for, you're going to get the same institutions. And boy, does that seem apposite and perspicacious now when we have a very powerful and idiosyncratic and seemingly self empowered individual as the leader of your country, the most powerful nation in the world, who many people believe is currently fulfilling an agenda that is not endorsed by the American public and many people also believe is not even in the best interests of the United States of America. So if someone is powerful and magnetic and idiosyncratic as Donald Trump can be maneuvered, maneuvered by invisible institutions of deep state international power that are not beholden to the populations of the nations that they are elected to represent, then all of us are participating to some degree or another in sets of powers and interests that do not like to be challenged and are difficult to challenge. Whatever one thinks about this current conflict, one thing I pretty strongly believe is if Kamala Harris had been elected, you would still have this war with Iran in more or less the same way. And that's what's kind of disheartening about it, is that power is going to do what it's going to do. In fact, when you reflect even for a minute, it's ridiculous to think otherwise. Otherwise true global power would have to pivot every four years to accommodate significant variation depending on which political party got elected. The likes of Kissinger players on the world stage have always known you need twenty year, thirty year, fifty year, hundred year American projects. And it's very interesting to know that the project of the next American century included we're going to have wars with Iran, we're going to have wars with Lebanon, Iraq, new North Korea, Afghanistan. You can tick all those nations off. And most people that have been paying attention have already conducted that exercise. Now what the pandemic provided, I suppose was an interesting window where for a moment There was an attempt to assert global control, not even national control. You remember, we all do. At the beginning of the pandemic, they said, well, in China, of course, with their social credit scores and their centralized communist control, they can immediately submit an entire population. But you try that in the United Kingdom or Italy or lord above forbid, the United States of America. Well, what happened? They were more or less able to assert that level of control in what is superficially a very different political system, explicitly democracy. And yet when it was the lockdowns, when it was you can't worship when it was take these vaccinations, people generally speaking, obeyed. The only problem was that with a decentralized media that's not controlled by the same resources and forces as customary media, there were voices like Joe Rogan, most obviously and evidently, who I suppose framed and platformed significant and more importantly authoritative voices around the vaccine. I'm talking about McCulloch, Robert Malone, Jay Bhattachary are people who, blessedly now one positive of the current administration are in government under the HHS of Secretary Robert Kennedy, now outspoken critics of the COVID pandemic. People that said, how can they possibly have researched these vaccines? How can we know what the side effects are? Did they even test for transmission? Once these threads start getting pulled, we know that companies like Moderna and Pfizer spent a good deal of money observing and doing their best to de amplify what they called anti vax voices. In my country, for example, Meghan, there's a group called the 77th Brigade. They're a psyops organization run by a man called Mark Lancaster, who's married to Dame Caroline Dinage, who.
- [19:00]
Megyn Kelly
She's the one who tried to stifle
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Russell Brand
you on the very first day. On the very first day that these unsettling and disturbing allegations were made. Caroline Dinage, who works for the government, was ready to X should demonetize Russell Brand Rumble should demonetize him.
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Megyn Kelly
YouTube.
- [19:15]
Russell Brand
And the YouTube, of course, did. Now, when did Caroline Dinage even learn the nomenclature of CPMs and programmatic ads? Well, perhaps it's possible to imagine in a Nancy Pelosi and Paul Pelosi type way, perhaps some information crossed the marital bed because her husband, Mark Lancaster, runs the 77th Brigade. They are, and you can look at this now online to ensure that what I'm telling you is at least somewhat accurate. The 77th Brigade are a psyops organization that operate in partnership with the military in countries like Syria and Afghanistan. When those nations are occupied and internal dissent has to be quashed and controlled. An online organization such as we saw in the Arab Spring, has to be managed and manipulated. That includes de amplifying online messaging, intercepting, controlling, shutting down and all, all sorts of things that we don't understand because we simply don't know the technology. Normally, psyops of that nature are not able to be practiced domestically. It's illegal. But in the same way that they found a way around surveilling citizens using the five eyes, and I understand from Netanyahu there is now a sixth eye in Israel. The five eyes get around that problem. The five eyes being the anglophonic nations, Canada, United States, America, New Zealand, Australia, the UK by spying on one another's citizenry and sharing information. That way, the US doesn't break any of its internal laws about spying on its citizens, and neither does the uk and yet the information is acquired, the information to control people. As Edward Snowden revealed at the time, they have all the information they need on you. So if in one, in one day in the future, you become an enemy of the state, they will find something with which to criminalize you. If that should be required, God forbid that that is ever required in anyone's life. But if it happens, they've got the information. So 77th Brigade were allowed to do that in the UK because Covid was treated as some of you remember, and it was extremely advanced in your nation as a kind of military exercise, a kind of war. Now, I only know this because I was reading the good work of other journalists and reporters and independent media contributors at the time. And that meant that most of us, a significant number of us, had a very different picture of COVID in real time than the one we were being offered by the very institutions that you and I worked for, Megan, where on late night tv, you know, the likes of Stephen Colbert were dressing up as a syringe and dancing around where I remember another late night show by my fellow Brit and you know, a person I have good affection for, James Corden, dancing in the street, celebrating Anthony Fauci, who now would celebrate Anthony Fauci in the same manner, knowing his involvement with the HIV crisis, Trump
- [21:51]
Megyn Kelly
still defending him.
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Russell Brand
So I suppose, you know, that was a rather a long answer, but it was a complex question and I want to thank you for having me on and give me the opportunity to address the thing that's troubled me most about this is I have obviously, through my conduct, hurt people. It's not criminal conduct. It's not right, in fact, to use the phrase that they use to CENSOR people on X these days. Awful but lawful, I think is what they say. It's not right to sleep around with lots of people. I say that not only as a father of dwarves, but of a son. I don't want my children growing up thinking the apex of your human power is having a lot of sex with people. Sex is a very powerful thing. It's a gift and I misused it. And I understand now that there are consequences to that.
- [22:35]
Megyn Kelly
Can we talk about, we can circle back on the, on the allegations, but let's just talk about how you got to be you because I.
- [22:42]
Russell Brand
It was a terrible mistake. Megan. This is what's happened.
- [22:45]
Megyn Kelly
Having read more about your background, your whole story came into more clear focus for me. So it wasn't an ideal childhood. Your dad wasn't really present. Your mom went through a lot while you were young and forgive me for raising it so casually, but you also were the victim of sexual abuse. My understanding is so that's a lot for anybody's first 18 years. How would you describe your childhood?
- [23:11]
Russell Brand
Well, I suppose because I have the blessing of being in 12 step recovery now. I encounter people on a daily basis that have suffered enormously, enormously. And I have the privilege of very dedicated, imperfect parents. Like my children have got very dedicated and imperfect parents. My father, Ron Brand, he did his best, but he was on his own mission. He lost his own father when he was a baby, when he was seven years old. My mother, as you've alluded to, had cancer about five, six, seven times in a very short time frame. That was in my childhood. And you're right, I did experience some sexual abuse outside of the family when I was very young, when I was seven, and then again when I was a teenager now because I'm aware that my doting loving parents, God love them, my dad in particular, he'll watch, he'll be watching this live if he knows I'm on it. Like I, I don't want to prioritize my own self aggrandizement and my tendency to mythologize myself and to sort of lean into this idea that I come from a humble blue collar background and I overcame heroin addiction and crack addiction and all of that. Some of those things are true because now I recognize that who I've always been and who I am now is a broken person, who my parents are a broken people. And I was talking to my mum on the phone here and she's like this, you know, my mum who loved me was so happy. When I've got To be famous, because she thought, oh, look, it all makes sense now. That weird little kid that I was raising, now he's famous and, like, look, everyone loves him. Or, you know, at least some people love him, you know, so my childhood was chaotic, and it was difficult and it was hard. And I've always, always felt desperately, desperately alone and exiled here and broken. And a lot of the time, very, very afraid and very, very unhappy in the world. And frankly, when I became a drug addict, it was a tremendous relief. And any drug addict watching this, or alcoholic will recognize what I'm saying. It was the first time life made sense, was when I was able to medicate internally and chemically the feelings of total abandon and loss here. And that's really nobody's fault, because I know people that have grown up in care and foster homes and with unbelievable, horrific suffering, and I know people that have grown up in opulence and splendor.
- [25:18]
Megyn Kelly
When did the drugs start? Because I know you. You found acting in high school.
- [25:22]
Russell Brand
Yes.
- [25:22]
Megyn Kelly
And so when did the drug start? After that?
- [25:24]
Russell Brand
Yeah, immediately after. It's almost. Do you recognize in your own life, Megan? Two tracks running simultaneously? One where you're being guided by sort of almost, one might say a heavenly hand, and the other sort of pulling you back. I sort of started smoking weed like any kid at 15, 16. Then it just escalated. I had such an appetite for it, every single drug. Well, this is what I think might be somewhat significant is that I treated it like worship. Like, I worshiped drugs. I worshiped it. I loved taking cocaine. I loved heroin. I was fascinated with heroin before I ever took it. I really thought, this is going to be it. This is going to solve everything. I was around the first time I took it was 19. I was dependent on it. By the time I was, I reckon, 22, 23, I got. I got my first, like, real gig was I started hosting shows. When I put on a 24, 25 on MTV, this was before I knew I was. They were late at night, I was in nightclubs and I would talk to people. That. It was when club culture was a big deal in Europe and people taking, like, ecstasy and mdma Molly, you call it in your country, I think. And, like, people were off their faces and I would say, like, crazy stuff to them because I was high also. But I was able to follow these very surreal and unusual rants. What people didn't know is that while they were on ecstasy, I was on crack and heroin. And that was my first a, like, little go at being famous and having Money and not living on welfare. And I exploded into that little life so quickly that I, you know, I hit a ceiling, I hit a parameter. I crashed and burned real fast to
- [26:44]
Megyn Kelly
the point where just, I don't know, it sounds like it was just prior to this. But you, you did your first acting gig in high school, then you went to the Royal Academy of Theater. What do you call it?
- [26:51]
Russell Brand
What's the name of the Interrada is what you're alluding to. And I still feel a pang of disappointment even to hear its name mentioned. I went to a place called Drama center, which is a very good school where people like Pierce Brosnan and Simon Callow and who are these stars nowadays? Fassbender, Tom Hardy, like good actors went there. So like a very gritty Stanislavski based school. I went there and they loved me, they adored me. Then I went crazy. I took too many drugs. They threw me out. I could get thrown out everywhere. Thrown out of the uk, thrown out of Hollywood, thrown out of every school I was ever at.
- [27:20]
Megyn Kelly
But you kept landing on your feet somehow. So you were young, you were in your young twenties when you found the glory of these drugs, which of course is always followed by something, I don't know what we call it, but it's the opposite of glory. And how long did it take you before you got clean off the drugs and sort of the sex addiction took. It took their place.
- [27:37]
Russell Brand
Oh, well, the sex addiction, I have to say, was, you know, like, I got concurrent. Yeah, but it gets worse without drugs or, you know, because obviously there are impeding factors with, if you're, if you're dependent on heroin. Without going into too much graphic detail, there are a number of obstacles to a successful sex life. But like, I stopped taking heroin when I was like 27 and stopped drinking and by God's grace, became abstinent one day at a time through the 12 step programs, which are really the foundation of my spiritual life, thank God, because that's where you first learn there's not really drugs you're addicted to. You're addicted to yourself. You're addicted to this particular perspective. You're addicted to control. You are so obsessed with who you are and what you want that you are. You can't really be of any use to anybody in this world. That's what I learned anyway, but I only learned it briefly. And the thing is, once I stopped taking drugs, my life improved radically in a number of ways. I became successful in my country. I got a bunch of TV shows and became quite celebrated, in fact. One might say it really took off like a rocket and there was a moment of real glory. Don't you remember, Megan? Wasn't there a bit when you first started to be successful where it's like, oh, my God, it's working. I'm successful. People see me. A world that's continually saying no is now just saying, yes, yes, yes. You can host these awards, you can have a book deal, you can have your own show. It was so amazing when that happened. But I think probably because of what I would now call a sort of false idolatry, I easily, or cross addiction might be an easier term. I drifted into just the worship factor, that a tendency to worship really drifted into the availability of, you know, casual encounters.
- [29:08]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, can you describe it? Because when you. You write about it in the book, you're very open about these addictions and the sex addiction details. Like, by the way, we're speaking with Russell Brand and the book is how to Become a Christian in Seven Days. You put it out there. And one of my questions was with the number of women who you openly talk about having interludes with at a time in a day, several times a day. This is all before you were young. But there was no little blue pill. How does a man even keep up at that level?
- [29:42]
Russell Brand
I have a real appetite for what I recognize now is God. And that's not unique to me. I think anyone that is an addict, and this is how the 12 step program describes it, Megan, really, they are looking for God. We are all looking for God. We were made for God. And by God, we were made to love God. Now, if you live in a culture and a world that denies the existence of God, I personally was trying to defibrillate the dead and inert world into life through chemicals at first. And then, you know, sex is a gift, and sex used appropriately is a marvelous and wonderful and holy experience. But sex in the hands of an idiot is a sort of a dangerous tool. So how I did it is. I've got a lot of energy. I've got a lot of energy.
- [30:24]
Megyn Kelly
Yes, we can see that.
- [30:25]
Russell Brand
And a lot of gifts and. But those gifts must always be marshaled to the service of the highest good. And if you don't know that and you use it essentially for. For self indulgence, you will get in, as it turns out, very, very serious trouble. You will get in very serious trouble and you will hurt a lot of people. Wow. Just the other day, in a 12 step environment, I heard someone say that when you drink a bottle of Jack Daniels the bottle that once you put it down, doesn't have any feelings about it. When you'll start to do stuff like that in other areas of behavioral addiction, obviously sex is what I'm referring to. Then you are creating a lot of ill will.
- [31:00]
Megyn Kelly
Have you ever tried to put a number on the number of women who.
- [31:03]
Russell Brand
You've still got the fox skills. The fox skills. Get a number, Get a stop. Well, all right, let's think about this. Mathematically. There was a sort of a period between, like, you know, I think I became sort of attractive in the late 90s. And I think that that attractiveness endured to possibly in 2015, let's say, Meghan, we are talking very high numbers. We're talking four, four figures. And it's difficult, particularly if you want to include all of the variety of sexual contact, then it would be so thousands, thousands, thousands, thousands. It was my main job. I was very, very devout. It was very foolish. I can even feel a little smile curling at the corners. Even as a person who's facing trial in October, still like, yes, I did very well. I've still not learned. I have learned the lesson. I've learned the lesson, Lord, I have learned.
- [31:49]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. Well, we're talking about sex here. We're not talking about sexual assault, which is very different.
- [31:54]
Russell Brand
Well, but it's still sexual. Sex is sacred. Sex is sacred. And pornography desacralizes sex. Promiscuity desacralizes sex. Making sex the apex of your identity, whether you're a heterosexual or not. It desacralizes sex. It's a holy power that I misused.
- [32:11]
Megyn Kelly
So you write, you go on a deep dive on your sexual escapades. In the book. And I'm just going to read a little bit from it again. It's called how to Become a Christian in Seven Days with Russell Brand. I had sex with multiple women, often at the same time, most days, for years. It was normal to have three ways and four ways. And for women who had not met prior to fold into one flesh. In my bed, it happened every day. Here are a few occasions that stand out that will help you understand the levels of excess, the sheer abundance and implausibility, the pointlessness of coercion, meaning you never had to nor did coerce anybody to do this with you. As well as the hollow sadness that is an inevitable accompaniment to all forms of addiction and sin. Such an important point. The hollow sadness. You're right. After a transatlantic flight from la, I invited the whole female flight crew back to my house. They came, they drank, we all messed around. Some of them were married or in relationships. I felt like an alchemist. I could create ecstasy out of mundanity. When I would tell my male friends these stories, especially older married ones, I felt so valuable and impressive. Now I see things very differently. After a show at the Brixton Academy, the female cast of a popular reality TV show tumbled out of the after party and poured into my hot tub with no more fanfare or fuss than I once would have tipped the contents of an instant soup into a mug. There were at least five of them. A couple were sisters. As if some dormant part of me were at least some dormant. As if some dormant part of me, alive only in Christ, already knew the man I would become, the challenges and trials I would face, and the significant fact that I myself would one day be a father to daughters. The apparent mad and hedonic glamour was haunted by something I couldn't understand. So this is a fascinating picture because this is the kind of stuff that everybody dreams. A famous man, a successful actor, host, comedian, rock star, whatever life will look like. But they don't acknowledge that second piece of it. That it actually is the same as doing heroin or being an alcoholic. That there's a downside of shame, disgust, and never being able to fill the thing you're trying to fill inside of yourself.
- [34:23]
Russell Brand
Yes, if God wants you and God loves you, and God does, then you will feel this presence, even at times where you think it unlikely. And that, I suppose, is in my book because I recollect it so clearly, that it seemed on the surface like everything you would want in the most ridiculous male fantasy, that you can be offered multiple attractive women simultaneously. You as the adored center and focus. And in the midst of that, I sensed something kind of a bit icky and deathlike and obviously, in retrospect, as I've said, oh, I see what that is now. What you are creating for yourself and for other people is suffering. And you are making yourself into. This is what I understand it as now, Megan, is making yourself a kind of God. Gifted as I have been with the ability to connect, I could help a lot of people. I could help people. But I didn't recognize that or see that I have an opportunity to be of real value, to live a life of actual meaning, of meaning these things. Oh, man. I was once at a 12 step meeting in New Orleans and I was famous then, I guess. And this guy who, like, had this great beard, he was older and kind of scruffy and dirty but solid, looked like a sailor or something, wearing like a Sailor's hat and he was sort of big. And it was in New Orleans that I got arrested on that movie even. Man, it's been so crazy, this life, he said, fame, celebrity, those things, those are crumbs. I want to be at the banquet and just yesterday I was reading in the Gospel of Matthew. The banquet is what we've been invited to. We are able to be participants in the glory of all creation. And our challenge is this. All of us will be like Christ, tempted by the devil. We will be offered the world, have the world be in charge, have big contracts, be a star, be fantastic, have women envy you and men want you or whatever is correct for your gender. But if you choose that path, you will end up in a hollow, empty barrenness. And maybe even worse, maybe you won't be blessed as I have been to see the way out of there. And even with the trials and challenges ahead, what I've been granted as a slow learner is a very clear correction and a very obvious illustration that I've been blessed with. I've got an amazing wife that just loves me. I've got really, really beautiful children. I've got amazing friends. Now when that voice and that appetite, that craving, that longing, which I would see kind of as demonic now when I feel it, I give it to the cross. I give it to him. If I'm smart enough, if I'm alert enough, if I'm awake enough to. I don't ever want to go back there. And I am sad but grateful to have been a participant in a culture that amplifies and advocates for that way of life continually. Because even though we're been post me too now, and we've seen lots of statues, real and figurative pulled down, I think a lot of young men that don't even observe traditional media anymore, but like, you know, participating in online media figures, and there are a lot of them very sort of male oriented social media figures, will still think that my identity is if I can sleep with lots of women, if I can have fast cars, if I can dominate and control. But this empire of domination and control, it uses us as its fuel. For a minute it will tell us we're beautiful, but when it's finished with us, it will spit us out. Well, we have the opportunity to love someone who loves us in our brokenness, in our vulnerability, in my ineptitude, in my frailty, in my inability to continually be the man that I'd like to be, to not be a good enough dad, to not be a good enough husband. Why would I not participate in that and participate along with other people in that. Why would I follow this empire of false idolatry and lies where every single hero that it erects eventually, inevitably tumbles and falls? Because that's what empires do. When what we have access to is eternity, that which is outside of time. We will go at best gracefully to our graves. But the grave is coming with its hungry mouth when we get there. Let's go there hand in hand together into eternity. Not having tried to. To create the simulacrum of permanence here. Permanent idols and skyscrapers and self made icons scratched out with our own clumsy hands.
- [38:42]
Megyn Kelly
Let me ask you something that Bill Maher says about something. He says on the subject he. He never married.
- [38:48]
Russell Brand
Yeah.
- [38:49]
Megyn Kelly
And he says it's because he didn't want to have to give up lust. That he enjoys lust too much. As somebody who's been on both sides of this and is incur in. Currently in a. In a loving marriage which does, I hate to tell you Bill, include lust. It's not like the first day, it's not like the first year. But it develops into something else. What. What do you think he's missing?
- [39:12]
Russell Brand
What Bill Maher, with all due respect, him there is missing and living through is a self perpetuated adolescence clinging to some injury or wound. I would imagine that occurred around the time when, you know, speak of someone who belatedly received these lessons. What Bill Myers missing is intimacy you can achieve through promiscuity. A kind of false intimacy that sort of feel kind of wonderful sometimes. Particularly with the charge of sexuality around it.
- [39:40]
Megyn Kelly
Especially the whole flight crew there.
- [39:41]
Russell Brand
Oh man, you got. There's nuts coming at you from every direction. Can I get you a hot house?
- [39:46]
Megyn Kelly
That's what she said.
- [39:48]
Russell Brand
But what you are missing out on is true intimacy. You are eating the crumbs comes that which has fallen from the table. The appearance of something instead of the thing itself. I actually really love Bill Maher. I think he's a. I've been on his shows a couple of times and I think he's a really, really lovely person. And I reckon that what Bill Maher. What I would pray for Bill Maher is the ability for him to love like to. One day we will. He'll be a hill and hear Bill Ma say man, I don't know what I was afraid of.
- [40:17]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [40:17]
Russell Brand
I have a father. I have a wife that I love. This is amazing.
- [40:20]
Megyn Kelly
Right. Why did I wait so long?
- [40:21]
Russell Brand
Yeah.
- [40:22]
Megyn Kelly
I don't know if he's capable. He doesn't Strike me as somebody who's capable. He's in a very different place.
- [40:27]
Russell Brand
You have to arrest yourself. You have to participate in your own delusion. We all of us hold the key to the way out. I recognize that. I did. I didn't have to like, you know how all of us men say like, oh, I don't regret anything because I wouldn't be the person I am. And that is one perspective that's available. But obviously for me, I'm like, wow, I wish I'd hurt all of these people. Also, I knew my wife when I was, when she was 19 and I was 30. Around like in a tunnel of. These things are sort of kicking off. I could have married her. I could have eight kids. Twenty years in, I could have had more time with her.
- [40:52]
Megyn Kelly
But you know, that's not really true because had the you of that year married the her of that year, you wouldn't have produced the same kids, you wouldn't have been the same people, you wouldn't have been as good parents. Like it. I, I do think that kind of stuff is meant to be when, when it happens. Yeah, there's, there's zero point in lamenting timing on things like a great relationship. It's like it came when it came because you were ready for it. You manifested it when you were ready for it. Okay, let's, let's talk about the young girl because that's one, that one's just bothering me. How is it that you had a relationship with a 16 year old girl?
- [41:22]
Russell Brand
Right. I'll give you some stories because some of this stuff pertains to ongoing legal situations out of respect for the judicial process and everybody involved.
- [41:30]
Megyn Kelly
I don't want to get you in more trouble than you're already facing with.
- [41:32]
Russell Brand
Yes, I'm in enough trouble. I want to contextualize it in this way. The reason the age, the age of consent exists is to protect people, children who can't make a decision. So if the age of consent is 18, then don't have sex with someone that's 16. If the age of sex is 16, don't have sex with someone that'S 15. That's the law. I'm talking about the law. If you're a 30 year old man and you're really famous, I now know, don't have sex with anybody at all because you are over endowed and empowered in ways that make the match unlikely. To be fair, what I would say is I did, I, I didn't have a peshawn for young girls. You know, that's not my thing. That's not my thing. That's just like.
- [42:11]
Megyn Kelly
No, just reading up on. It's like a troll piece of your history. It's not like. It does not. It's not a common theme that keeps going.
- [42:16]
Russell Brand
No, I really liked older women. Black women, white women, thin women, fat women. It's love. It's. It's perverted love, actually. It's like a. It's like, oh, my God, you're so. And also, it was sincere. The reason that I was sleeping with lots of people, I think, is because I see beauty. I see it. I see the beauty. I'm not like, oh, I'm just gonna tell this ugly cow, like, you know, I like. I mean, I love you. I love you. It feels very, very real. So for me, like, the age of consent would be something I'd be very alert to and would check. And also, by the way, I'm not like, yeah, it's not a kink of mine to, like, you know, if anything, it would be, oh, no, man, you'd like the seniors. Yeah, if anything. I mean, do you know what?
- [42:55]
Megyn Kelly
I didn't know that was a thing.
- [42:56]
Russell Brand
When I was young, when I was really little, I just grew up with my mom. Huh. Just. I'm the only son of a single mom.
- [43:02]
Megyn Kelly
Mum.
- [43:02]
Russell Brand
The lady from the house opposite Josie, who I just was on the phone with, with my mum, was with her. They're like 80. Like, my mum's 80 now. So I think Josie might be older than my mum. And, like, I remembered that when I wrote my first book, I'd wrote in it, written in my book. Should know the tenses as an author. Like, Doug would never make a mistake like that. I'd written about Josie, right? And she would have been like, you know, she was a single mom herself, and she one time her water, her hot water weren't working at the house. And I was about seven years old, old, and, like, I went and played with my toys in the bathroom. She said, can we use your kind of have a bath at your house, Babs? My mum. Because the hot water's not working at mine. And I heard that phone call and I went and, like, took all my toys into the bathroom and, like, played in there. And, like, when Josie came, my mum went, hey, Russell, get out there. Josie's having a bath. And Joseph, oh, he don't matter. He's only a little boy. The whole thing's a scheme.
- [43:51]
Megyn Kelly
You were looking for a cougar.
- [43:52]
Russell Brand
I found her like that. Obviously, nothing happened. I sat there playing with like my farmyard animals and, and toys, like any innocent normal child. But what I want to tell you is I just had an enormous appetite and craving for sexual. Where do you go with it if you're like looking for, looking for something of meaning and feel like, look, I started with weed, then I end up on heroin. I start with like sleeping with one person at a time. I wish I'd had the common sense to fall in love and to be a bit more. And by the way, sometimes I was, I keep telling people this that like, because I'm. When I was touring, doing like crazy ass world tours in arenas and like I'm telling you, it's like people throwing up, women throwing their underwear at me and all that kind of stuff and people getting wristbands to come backstage. It was unbelievable. Remember I wasn't like captain of the football team at school, right? I was like a nervous, weird kid. You know, I'm unusual. So like when that happened I was very, or like just like a, like a fish trawler or like just some open hole, just everything falling into this open hole. So I'm not like, you know, hey, can I check your id? What about you? Have you got any stuff, any psychological problems? Were you abused as a kid? Well, you know, I have that level of awareness now that I can see where people's injury are. I really sense it now. But I wasn't, I didn't care, I'd been stupid. But I do remember actually in Australia, like encountering a young woman and there being anatomical evidence of her lack of experience and saying to her in that situation, oh, actually hey, like this probably isn't a good way for you to have sex for the first time. So it wasn't like an inner un alert, you know, like I'm explaining in the book, he's always there, he's watching you. And also I'm a 12 step person. That means as a 12 step person, that means you do an inventory with your sponsor where you, where you tell them absolutely everything. If you're not entirely honest, you do not receive the benefits. Confession, truth is the foundation of everything. I would be lying to myself if I lied to you. I mean we're on the, you know, I'm aware it's being filmed and broadcast and stuff like that. And I'm not stupid, but what I'm saying is, but I've never done anything where I've, I've manipulated consent. I've manipulated consent by conducting it as a kind of energy, energy conduction. But bypassing consent is when you make people do things they don't want to do, not make things, do things, make people do things they wouldn't normally do, that is too young, you shouldn't sleep with anyone really younger than you. And if I'd had more, I mean I wouldn't go, but I don't want to time travel back and be a more efficient Womanizer.
- [46:12]
Megyn Kelly
I think 14 years difference is in itself scandalous. It's just given the age she was, it was, but you know, if she were 25 and you were 39, I don't think people would be looking at
- [46:22]
Russell Brand
that, you know, yeah, he is young, but I don't know if you remember from your own adolescence, because I do that there were some young women like you know, girls, you, let's call them girls. Like there were 16 that were like kids and then there were others that were like women and like 25 year old guys would pull up in cars outside the school. Like we're just at my normal comprehensive, that means regular state school, you know, when all the girls in your year go out.
- [46:45]
Megyn Kelly
Listen, you don't have to tell. I was called a pedophile enabler because I said there's a difference between 15 year olds and 5 year olds. When we were talking about what Jeffrey Epstein is and really the point I was making was that the term pedophile only appoint applies to somebody who likes prepubescent girls, which is a very different thing than liking women who are in their, you know, late teens and then you get into 15, 16 range. And it depends, it really depends.
- [47:13]
Russell Brand
I guess the law is the law. I'm in a legal situation. Morally it's course it's wrong, it's morally,
- [47:18]
Megyn Kelly
but, but I mean there are 15 and 16 year old girls who are having sex with 18 and 17 year old boys. Like they're right, it's the, like the age difference there does feel exploitative and shocking.
- [47:30]
Russell Brand
Yes. 15 year olds, 16 year olds, kids having sex with each other is none of my business. Me as a 30 year old, I had no business having consensual sex with women that were just past girls that were just over the age of consent. It wasn't really, it wasn't like my thing, you know, I mean it was this one, that one, this one when you saw.
- [47:49]
Megyn Kelly
So I think her, her fake name is Alice. I don't know if that's her real name.
- [47:52]
Russell Brand
From the documentary.
- [47:53]
Megyn Kelly
From the documentary, she went on camera.
- [47:55]
Russell Brand
Actually it wasn't, they were all actors, I believe all of the women, they
- [47:58]
Megyn Kelly
had some more Actors and some were like the adult version. I thought that we had the actual version of Alice. I don't know, actually, to be honest. But. But did you. Were you shocked to see that she was speaking out about it in a way that painted it as not consensual?
- [48:13]
Russell Brand
Yes, because. Yes, of course, actually. Yes, yes, absolutely. I. If again, with respect to ongoing judicial proceedings, this is a person that, outside of this difficult matter, were I to encounter her, I would greet her as a person that I held in very high regard.
- [48:36]
Megyn Kelly
Did you. And she. Did you feel like it ended well? Did you feel like you had a good, you know, you got out of it well, and you. You two were in a good place?
- [48:44]
Russell Brand
Um, yes.
- [48:46]
Megyn Kelly
So you were. You were stunned?
- [48:47]
Russell Brand
Yes, yes, yes.
- [48:50]
Megyn Kelly
Hmm. Is there any way. We have to take a break in a minute here, but is there any way, do you think, Russell, like, out of these criminal charges, do you think. Have you been able to speak to any of these women to try to, like, find out one on one?
- [49:03]
Russell Brand
I think about that sometimes and I would like to. I would like to, because there's. I, I would. I wish, I pray that there were a way that I could as a.
- [49:13]
Megyn Kelly
You get in trouble for witness tampering at this point, I guess.
- [49:15]
Russell Brand
Right. It's not legally permissible, but yeah, like, I recognize that people feel that they have been wronged, and I understand why they would feel like they have been wronged. But, you know, like is. It's a sort of an odd philosophical device to use your own children. But like, I've daughters. Seven. They're babies. But then presumably, I would imagine from the way, you know, there's a potential that they will find a certain type of man appealing when they grow up. Based on the way that they're being raised and who their primary male role model is, there will be a very, very strong difference. In my mind, were one of my beloved daughters to sleep with a charismatic wild womanizer, than if they were to be violated by a rapist, in one case, I would be sad about it and go, well, there's the. Life is full of lessons, kid. And in the other one, we've got a big situation.
- [50:06]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. All right, stand by. We have to take a break. There's so much more to go over. What, what a man, what a life. Russell Brand bears it all in his new book, how to Become a Christian in seven days. Asterisks may take 50 years of sin and serious fuck ups to get started. Don't go away. Our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, says Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet and now they're messing with your credit card. They say your credit card and the security it offers are under attack and that Senators Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall want to change the nation's payment system to benefit corporate megastores like Walmart and Target at the expense of everyday Americans. Credit cards can keep your payments secure and provide rewards that families use to help make everyday purchases more affordable. The Electronic Payments Coalition says the Durbin Marshall mandates would let corporate megastores cut corners on credit card processing, routing transactions over cheaper, untested networks with weaker security and fewer protections. Find out more@guardyourcard.com and consider telling Congress to guard your card On Deck is
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Russell Brand
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- [51:47]
Megyn Kelly
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- [51:53]
Russell Brand
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- [51:56]
Megyn Kelly
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner. We can help you prep. You'll learn from real world experts who love what they do so that you can love what you do. Go to udemy.com for the skills to get you started and get set for your dream job. We are back now with Russell Brand. He is the author of how to Become a Christian in seven days. Asterisks may take 50 years of sin and serious fuck ups to get started. It is available now@tuckercarlson.com, our pal Tucker is launching an imprint and Russell's book is the first big project within the imprint. So we'll supporting two people at once. But read the book cause you're gonna love it. And Russell is unsparing of himself which you can hear him do here on this set as well. So I'll move on from the women thing in one minute but I want to ask you about one other person who was featured in the documentary because I think her story illustrates how this whole thing is a lot more complicated than it may look to the outside world. Now this woman's name is Nadia, and she's featured in this British documentary called In Plain Sight, which details an alleged rape. That's what she says. The problem for Nadia is. And in this, I'm gonna play a soundbite from it.
- [53:09]
Russell Brand
Oh, wow.
- [53:10]
Megyn Kelly
It's played. It's played by an actress. To your point, I see, it's not whoever Nadia actually is. This is not the actual Nadia. It's some woman claiming I have this relationship with Russell and this is the terrible thing that happened to me. And we'll go through it in just a couple of details, but here it is. I think it's thought to. And he's like, please come. Just come and cuddle with me. So then I gave in. He comes running out of the bedroom naked. He came at me with kisses and stuff, which was kind of fun. And then it wasn't that fun when I couldn't move or I knew what he wanted from me. He pushed me up against the wall. I'm like, no, that's not happening. We're not doing that. And at this point, he's grabbing at my. My underwear, pulling it to the side. I'm telling him to get off me, and he won't get off. And he has that glazed look in his eye again. I was very distraught trying to get out of the house with him being so much taller than me, like, holding me up against the wall, pushing himself in me. I couldn't move. And he finally comes and gets off of me and I push him away. He blocks the door. He's like, are you okay? I'm like, no, I'm not okay. Get away from me. And he's like, well, let's calm down again. That was an actress purporting to be this woman based on this woman's testimonial of her relationship with you. She also claims that there was a text message after the fact that between the two of you where you sent her a text message at 3:29am I'm sorry. That was crazy and selfish. I hope you can forgive me. I know that you're a lovely person. X that you tried phoning her at 3:51am but the call went unanswered. And she says later in that same day she went with a friend to a rape treatment center at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center. She did not go to the police. And then she saw a therapist and they saw therapy notes from this rate treatment. It was all at the rape treatment center where she had those. So that's her story then. Then you Find out a little bit more in that. She says in this text to you, allegedly, this is reported later by the Mirror. Russell, when a girl says no, it means no. Do I have to go and get myself tested? Last time you asked me, condom or no condom. When I say condom, that doesn't mean it's optional. You don't have the best reputation. And you responded saying, I pride myself in being safe, trying to make the right decisions. Obviously this is a bad one. I'm so disappointed in that you wrote, you don't need to get tested. I will make this up to you somehow with live with love and kindness. Not my original idea, which was more sex. You're being funny here. So this whole text exchange is kind of illuminating to me and I wonder because this is somebody who claims she was in a relationship with you, she had had consensual sex with you that particular night, she did not want to have sex with you and that you forced yourself upon her. When you watch that and when you, you see that, what's your reaction to it?
- [56:33]
Russell Brand
Well, I must say, Megan, it makes me uncomfortable to tell you the truth, because as I've said, even whilst I believe that the challenge that I face is one of the misuse of being in a position where lots of people had sex with me just to even see iterated, albeit by an actor in a documentary which I think had an agenda, if that's my opinion about that.
- [57:04]
Megyn Kelly
Well, nor is it journalistically sound to use an actor like that, but that's another problem.
- [57:08]
Russell Brand
And also to shoot an actor in silhouette as well. If it is an actor, if it's an actual actor, you don't need to shoot them in silhouette. That shows that there's an intention and the type of music being used. But yeah, I suppose, look, I'm here in, of course I sort of think about what's my motivation? Even I'm coming on your show, what's my motivation? Am I falling again into the trap of wanting stuff, wanting to be successful, wanting to be powerful, want to have influence, wanting to get out of the consequences of my actions? And so what I have to say is my behavior, which my position is was consensual and therefore non criminal, is definitely immoral. And I suppose my job as a follower of Jesus is to focus on how I can follow him more closely. And I don't really, Megan, get a lot of delight out of going that person said this, but actually that although those things will be very important in the trial that I'm facing because that's the Nature of it. I'm being put into a criminal situation. You know, that's the nature of what I'm facing. And do know that I'm like. Will be literally in like a, like a glass box, like Hannibal Lecter, like in the, in the, in the pre trial one. So like to me it's, it's. I'm in a sense trying to manage this in a number of different fields. In the, in the judicial and legal one. It's a matter of of course demonstrating that the encounters that I had were consensual in a public relations field, which is I suppose what I'm in now. I think I have to take the opportunity to say that I'm not saying so what? These women are lying. They wanted money. Who cares F that I'm not like. That's not my position. My position is yes, I recognize that my conduct has caused harm and pain in, in a, in a PR situation, like being on the Megyn Kelly show. My, I think my role and my job is to make it very clear to people that that behavior, as I describe it, was not behavior that I would endorse, but it's not non consensual or coercive behavior. However, people obviously, plainly, as we just saw there, albeit played by an actor, felt hurt by the encounters by me. And so I've obviously got some work to do somewhere.
- [59:25]
Megyn Kelly
So what level of stress are you at about this criminal trial?
- [59:29]
Russell Brand
All right, so sometimes it's unbelievable, sometimes it's kind of unbelievable. Sometimes I can't. Sometimes I think if this can happen, then anything can happen. If.
- [59:40]
Megyn Kelly
Look, when I was coming in December,
- [59:42]
Russell Brand
October, I think it's October 7th, the trial in the United Kingdom, it's so it's sort of, you know, it's coming up close and I've got like a normal family, I've got young children and all that kind of stuff. So I'm living a normal life. I'm working. And so of part of my job is public facing and I'm assessing that. And what contribution can I make and how has it impeded me and impaired me and slowed me down? What are the positive things that have come from it? Like certainly it's been very, very, very humbling and confront because I already recognized that sexual addiction was wrong. I've already recognized that as a married man or anyone in a committed relationship, I suppose you've got to be straight and faithful. All of those lessons I'd kind of learned. But I believe in God. So all things are from God. This is from God. Yeah, and I don't like it very much. I mean, and it is extremely stressful. But because of my faith in God, when I feel frightened and I sometimes do, what I try to do is recognize that he is a great and loving God and that he will use this in some way. And on a slightly less mystical plane, I recognize that I have some serious amends to make and perhaps by God's grace, an opportunity to put right the wrongs I've done. But I have to tell the truth. I can't put right wrongs I haven't done. Only the things that I've done. And I've been. I was clear about those things at the time. Because, Megan, when I was doing that stuff, if I was on a talk show or if, like, you know, I'm aware of attractive women, I'm not blind, I can see attractive. And when I was like a single person, I'm like, assessment. Are you married? Yes. Okay, no problem. Unless you're married and you've got an open marriage. Right, Fair enough. What about you?
- [61:19]
Megyn Kelly
Are you not married like some of those flight attendants?
- [61:21]
Russell Brand
Right. Like, so I was an open channel, but for the, for the wrong frequency and the wrong energy. What's it like now? It's very, very pressurizing. And as a Christian, I recognize that pressure can be very refining, very refining. So I try to keep my mind and my prayers on the people involved in this that are, are hurt and that need resolution and justice. I'm trying to be aware of that. I'm trying not to be selfish. I'm trying to pay attention to that. Everyone participating in this is doing their best.
- [61:51]
Megyn Kelly
Does it, does it make you angry?
- [61:55]
Russell Brand
The anger I've never felt. I understand the position. Look, in the. When MeToo happened in 2015, you know, I was like, wow, I've slept with lots and lots of women. I wonder if during this moment I'm going to face some allegations. And that did not happen because I think some people, it seemed, were facing allegations that maybe it looked like consensual activity. Refrain again.
- [62:17]
Megyn Kelly
That's one of the things that's very, you know, suspicious about the allegations against you is that no one did come forward then. It wasn't until you got very outspoken in your more right wing views that suddenly Channel Thor thought it would be a great time to do a hit piece on Russell Brand and found some women. I mean, it'd be the equivalent of like going around and finding all the women who had slept with Jon Bon Jovi and saying, do you ever have anything that didn't feel 100%. You know, it's just when you go to a man who's been as exposed as you have, like a rock star, as you were describing, if you really, really, really lift up every sheet and kick every tire, you may find some women who are unhappy about their experiences. I'm not diminishing them. Maybe they're true, whatever, we'll find out at the trial. But maybe they're not true. And maybe this did come up because there was a new agenda when it came to your name and it was much more interesting to silence you and smear you. And honestly, Russell, like, I'm not diminishing anybody's story. I don't know what happened, but I can relate to this to some extent. I've just, I have seen my own self get attacked by different groups over the years. When you fly too close to the sun or when you're over an issue that's this particular group's favorite issue and they need you to say it it in a different way or feel a different way that I now am very suspicious about. Like massive harms that come to people when they speak out on a particular issue or in a particular way. It happens over and over and over.
- [63:45]
Russell Brand
Yes, it is interesting. One of the outside of my own experience where of course by definition I can't be objective because I am the subject of it. I do try to imagine that the way that power operates these days is to first decide an outcome. This is the outcome we want. How do we get to that outcome? We need these resources. We need control of social media. Like when there's a spate of stories, for example, saying we're really concerned that young people using their social media are getting too much access to pornography. Either the government and the state are really concerned about the moral well being and purity of our youngsters, or they're looking for a way to legitimize some measures and control that they would like to assert. That's why I think the pandemic period that many of us have sort of, you know, everyone wants to just go in their lives and no one wants to look back over their shoulders.
- [64:38]
Megyn Kelly
It's so depressing.
- [64:39]
Russell Brand
It's interesting. It's interesting. But what were the results of the pandemic? I think when we look at, you know, key bono, I think is the phrase in Latin, who benefits? When we look at what happened, who benefited, whether it's a sort of something that's personal or whether it's something that's larger, more macro, then it Helps us to understand clearly what's required. I think that the agenda right now is to create a great deal of social unrest and cultural confusion. People arguing and quarreling about identity and ideology. A kind of Tower of Babel moment where everybody is in a mad conflict. A cacophony of argument. In this cacophony of argument, I think there will be an attempt to assert centralized control. Increasing centralized control that is not national but international. And I think the pandemic, whether deliberately or not, was a opportunity to pilot levels of control. What are the problems you face if you tell people everyone's got to get in their house? How do they respond to it? How much trust do the media have these days? Who trusts cnn, msnbc, Fox, whoever? And I think they learned a great deal. And I would be very surprised if we didn't see in the coming years attempt to shut down anybody who has a meaningful dissenting voice. If you have a meaningful dissenting voice, it's quite likely that you will be subject to attacks. 100 the money people will look at your taxes and the way you've paid. They will look at your sexual history. They will do whatever they can. And, you know, if there's nothing else they can do. It seems that sometimes very convenient people are assassinated, people that it's beneficial to not have around.
- [66:21]
Megyn Kelly
Well, you made an interesting point on Tucker. You made it, you know, facetiously, but, you know, there was obviously an element of. Are we onto something in the discussion about the lone gunman? I never heard somebody say it the way you said it. Like, wow, it's really interesting how these lone gunmen are out there assassinating all these really prominent, important figures. You know, if you were, if you were a government who really wanted to get rid of a problematic person, you'd be really smart to partner with one of these lone gunmen. Like that's basically how you put it. You said it more articulately than that. But I like that, that that was more persuasive to me than any conspiracy theory in quotes I've heard on any of the assassinations. Is like, if you are a government or a government agency or an underworld related entity and you want to take out somebody really famous, wouldn't it make sense to do it that way? As opposed to just sending your super secret sniper into the crowd and taking him out.
- [67:15]
Russell Brand
Yes. Are you a teenager with no social media imprint who's never been on any of these sites? Are you despairing and at a loss? Then you could be a lonely one in a hundred lone gunmen. Maybe you could be at all of the state. I was just thinking that. And that perhaps what's important is for us to recognize that everyone is broken and any of us that have invested our hope in some political figure or cultural figure, in the end, disappointment is what's coming because they're all broken and hopeless in their own way. And another thing that I feel might be important is to look at who we can forgive and who we can move towards in good faith. Because I think we're doing their work for them. When I say they, I mean the true power, the empire. We're doing their work for them. When we quarrel with one another, when the chat is full of in intermittently anti Semitism, Islamophobia, hatred, loathing, I regard it as a kind of frequency. Once you are on that frequency of hatred and condemnation, they've already got you. You've been, as we would say in the uk, lifed off. You're partitioned, you're no good, you're useless now. When you remain in faith, faith and in grace, open hearted and willing to forgive and willing to love, you move into a different terrain and different territory. If we don't instantiate a different type of politics that actually, I mean ironically the system that would work rather well is democracy. If we do not use the technology that we have right now that's in my country being used for facial recognition technology that's just been litigated. They're now going to have facial recognition technology, cameras all across the uk. Many, many people are concerned that in the United Kingdom you're very likely to be arrested. We have more arrests than any other nation for social media posts. There's an attempt to get digital ID mandated that has been temporarily rescinded because there was so much public resistance. Which optimistically suggests that if we are willing to unite in a line, we can oppose this technological feudalism that seems to be coming down the line. What terrifies me, Meghan, is that the, the enemy, the empire deal only in counterfeits. Instead of unity, they will have totalitarianism. Instead of intercommunication, they will have mass surveillance. All of our communications observed and controlled. All of our information pre chewed any opinion that's not convenient to the empire or to the state, passed off, ignored and censored. I really believe that we are at a pivotal moment. I think everybody knows that. I don't want to indulge that kind of fin de siecler narcissism that every generation feels. We are the ones that will experience the Armageddon. We're the ones that will experience the apocalypse. Surely we will.
- [69:52]
Megyn Kelly
But in the wake of COVID why wouldn't we be asking those questions? I mean, we just had our president send out a post saying, no, I think I'm willing to sacrifice my, my liberties, my civil liberties in order to have the government have this control. It's fine when in the context of these FISA warrants in the FISA court, and this is something that we on the right cheered post 9 11, you know, these Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act these, these warrants that you can get to, you can get access to millions of people's metadata from their phones. And the way the government justified it was, yes, some Americans may get swept up in our search for spy communications or terrorist communications, but it's. We're not after them, we're after the bad guys. And it's not like we're pulling, you know, Megyn Kelly's text and reading them. We're basically just going to see her metadata in the field of. Lots of metadata. And we accepted that post 911 because we were scared shitless. It was.
- [70:44]
Russell Brand
We were.
- [70:45]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, we really had been attacked and 3,000 of our fellow Americans were killed in the most brutal way possible. So we sacrificed a lot of our core beliefs back then. But it's been 25 years since 9 11. And to pretend that we still need this tool for the terrorists. Right, like what to prevent that from happening is bullshit. That's. That's for us. And there should be objections by the American public. But wait, I want to circle back because we went back to policy and our governments. And I just want to stay on something about you because I read. I don't know where I read it, but your wife said to you, or maybe gave you a written. Was it a psalm, a verse from the Bible about when we get persecuted, we feel great joy? Something to that effect.
- [71:27]
Russell Brand
Yes. That's from James 1. Now, I don't paint a picture of my wife as a devout Christian. She's very much a lapsed Catholic. Her family are. Her father in particular is a very dedicated Catholic. But my wife, you know, if anyone's suffering as a result of my Christianity, it's my wife. And if anyone would know if it were a performance, it would be my wife. And. But she did very beautifully when I was going back for one of the preliminary hearings prior to my trial, made this beautiful painting of a magnolia. And a verse from James first is in the New Testament of one of James's letter for the first chapter is. We consider it great joy when we face trials of any kind. What, we're being invited.
- [72:10]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. I love that. So I. I do.
- [72:13]
Russell Brand
You do that.
- [72:15]
Megyn Kelly
I always, always say this. I say that to myself. I say it to my staff. I say it to young people when I. When I speak to them on college campuses. I. I confess, it's. It's a take on something I first heard many, many moons ago from Oprah Winfrey, back when we liked her. But it was a good piece of advice, and it was. Whenever something comes your way that's hugely negative or a massive challenge, your first response should be thank you. Thank you. Because how do we grow? How do we evolve as human beings? How do we become, you know, people with superhero muscles, emotional muscles? Unless that stuff does come to us, if that stuff never comes to us, we remain boring, rather uninformed, weak, unprepared for some massive crisis that may be coming down the line. Each one of these that does get thrown to you as long as you don't even have to win. I mean, I'm not talking about, like, okay, you go. You go to prison for 10 years. That's not. That's tough. But my point is, if you just keep going, if you just handle it, if you don't stay in the fetal position in your bed, it's already a win. You've already grown. It's huge opportunity to evolve as a human. And the bigger the challenge, the bigger the fear, the bigger the opportunity.
- [73:22]
Russell Brand
Yes.
- [73:23]
Megyn Kelly
So I love what you wrote. Yeah, she didn't write it originally, but I love that what she stitched.
- [73:27]
Russell Brand
Yeah, absolutely. It's incredibly encouraging and precisely the wife that I'm. I'm. I deserve that. I did. Maybe I don't deserve.
- [73:37]
Megyn Kelly
No, you must deserve her.
- [73:38]
Russell Brand
You must deserve her, man. Thank God.
- [73:41]
Megyn Kelly
You wouldn't have her if you didn't.
- [73:42]
Russell Brand
You know, like what I think, Megan, whether it's you or me or Taka. Whoever. Or whoever. But there's this sense that in the end the technology that meant that you don't have to work for Fox no more. You know, you can work for Sirius if you want to, and you can
- [73:57]
Megyn Kelly
do partnerships that I don't work for serious. So they license my show.
- [74:00]
Russell Brand
License your show. Brokerage. The power of the brokers has been diminished. That's the real trend. That's significant. That in information has been decentralized. So, Eva, the political systems will have to learn to evolve and adapt and reflect this decentralization. Or perversely, they will constrict and try to legitimize more and More centralization and authoritarianism and a kind of technological feudalism, a centralized control. It's pretty clear that they've taken the latter path. I think most people were temporarily excited about MAGA nationalism because it seemed like in the powerful and, as I say, idiosyncratic figure of Donald Trump, there was at least a kind of stumbling block and maybe even a bulwark against advancing global imperialism, where using the idea of care and protection, more and more control was being asserted. You have to sign this in order to do that. We need you to carry this. We're going to eventually plant a chip under your skin. All those things that were once the preserve of the conspiracy theorists advancing into everyday life. Think about what you thought about what David Ick and Alex Jones Jones was saying in the 90s and how you revered the New York Times and BBC. Well, which direction is that needle moving in? Are there pedophile rings? Is there occultist power? Can we trust the mainstream narrative on the most important issues, whether it's wars or assassinations? What I believe they fear most of all is that this ability to instantaneously communicate will become politicized. That ultimately people could have decentralized communities and localized politics, that you would have minimal government, minimal intervention, maximum ability to run your community like the Amish if you wanted, or like gay people if you wanted, or like Muslims if you wanted that. You don't need the intervention of a global bureaucracy anymore.
- [75:56]
Megyn Kelly
I wanted to read this to you because you mentioned Alex Jones. So he and I have a very interesting history together. But I have to tell you, even. Even at our worst, in terms of our fighting, I always said he. He has been right about so much. Right. We had our big.
- [76:13]
Russell Brand
Would he attack you sometimes or did you attack.
- [76:15]
Megyn Kelly
No, he never attacked me.
- [76:16]
Russell Brand
It was, you go do an attack once.
- [76:18]
Megyn Kelly
I went, I can definitely do an attack. But I went to interview him while I was at NBC to do like an in depth profile on him, and it was not long after he had said that the Newtown families made up the murder of their children. So, you know, he was like very, very hot potato to touch at the time. But I thought it'd be an interesting profile and he had moved off of that. So I kind of thought we were just gonna do a profile on Alex Jones and we would touch on that, but it wouldn't be the theme of the piece because he was interesting and he. I knew he had gotten a lot right. Anyway, we went there and he kept doubling down on the Sandy Hook thing, which turned the whole piece into something that did look more like a hit piece because I, of course I had to get content because that's insane and wrong and it wasn't made up. Those kids were killed. So anyway, then he taped me, he released the tape. It just was like this crazy, crazy ass shit time in my life. But having said all that, it's water under the bridge. And I've been watching what Alex Jones has been doing lately and I actually really appreciate it. I think he's been doing great shows and his messaging around the whole Israel thing has been must see. And I mean, like, like I said from the beginning, he's been right about a lot. Just today there was a, there was a big piece of news last night. I don't know if you saw a cash. Patel announced that the Southern Poverty Law center, the splc, which is supposed to be this great group that protects, you know, America from racism and all the isms, like, they'll be the first to call you out if you're a terrible person so that everybody knows, Russell's terrible, Megan's terrible, stay away, they're this or that and the other thing, and then turned into just this left wing group that would bash anybody on the right. That's how it's been for years that they have been paying, paying members of the Ku Klux Klan, of the Aryan Brotherhood to go infiltrate. They say it's, oh, it's just infiltrate. You know, we're just, they're like inside sources. We didn't create them to. We didn't pay them to create the event, just to infiltrate. That's not what the indictment says. And they've been exposed now as basically paying the very people. They then look at their donors and say, pay me to protect you from that person. I'm paying. I'm going to use your money to pay him to cause hell. Including in Charlottesville, Virginia, at the Unite the Right rally. That would just cause a massive headache for President Trump from the beginning of his first term where he said, because there were skinheads there, but there were also people who were just off that we were pulling down statues of like Confederate generals or just even Christopher Columbus. And Trump said, you know what? Not he said, not the white supremacists, but outside of them, there were very fine people on both sides. And that quote was used against him unfairly for many, many years and still is. Alex Jones. Okay. Back In August of 2017, Charlottesville was a false flag run by Southern Poverty Law center operatives who hired actors to pose as Nazis. These, the guy there I could give you so many of these by Alex Jones. After we did my interview with him where it did get contagious, but I spent days with him. He said so many things. They, they sounded crazy. Russell. We went back to the NBC fact checking machine, which is good. NBC's biased, but they're not reckless generally when it comes to, like, their reporting. Don't get me wrong, I understand what happened with Russiagate, and I'm not talking about MSNBC, NBC. I'm talking about NBC. They all came back true. Everybody's like, he's a lunatic. He says the frogs are turning gay and they're turning transgender. We're like, he's a nutcase. True, true, true, true, true. It was, it was amazing. The Sandy Hook stuff was very, very wrong and untrue. Must be said again. In any event, he's on the list, right? Like, he's been, of course, due to his own behavior and due to just being right about a lot of the stuff that they don't want out there, they've authorized him. They've done it to Tucker. They're in the process of trying to do it to me. I'm a lot harder because I don't have the conspiratorial gene that a lot of these folks have and their conspiracies, many places have turned out to be true. So it's like, shame on me for not having more of one. But I just, I'm not built like that. I'm a lawyer. I'm a linear thinker. Very, very fact based, you know, I don't believe anything until it's really been proven to me with, like, facts I can hold. But they're trying, like, they're trying to do it to me right now, and it's infuriating. And now I'm much, much more suspicious about the narratives. I've been sold about many, many other people, right? Like, yeah, are they really crazy and conspiratorial or do they know something? Have they hit on one of those soft spots that you're not allowed to touch?
- [80:50]
Russell Brand
It's very hard to stay present. It's very hard to stay present and assess when you're being emotionally stimulated. The whole culture is continually emotionally stimulated. Sexual imagery, images of imagery of violence and fear. These things create bewilderment and disorientation. You shouldn't consume too much of it, if any at all. As a matter of fact, over time and right now, AI and the Internet are creating something that's akin to a counterfeit consciousness. Remember Carl Jung saying that we have A collective unconscious. It's almost as if there's a real repository for all of our thoughts. It says that we are all participants in the Holy Spirit, that all of us can share in God's grace and presence right now. That eternity is not just beyond time, but it is within and throughout time. Now, in creating this online Internet space where all consciousnesses and individuals can potentially interconnect with one another, we've created a kind of facsimile or counterfeit of a psychic. The psyche is generating the kind of shadow archetypes that Jung himself spoke about. And because we live in this materialistic secular culture, we don't have the language or even the diagnostic tools to recognize these types. The dark woman that will tell you truths that people don't want to hear and uncomfortable about. The ranting preacher that might say things that are sometimes crazy or prophetic. Have you looked at the prophetic language in the Bible, but has a great many truths to tell us? The thoughtful Khan, the meaty, solid warrior that thoughtfully pontificates and interrogates people. Our Internet online new media space is like a new consciousness inhabited with people like you and me and Tucker that have lived for a while in the old media and then these other creatures that came from the periphery or were born within it. But there are great truths that are being told by you. With your understanding of litigation and systems of justice media, you have a great deal to offer Tucker, with his background there that's sort of deep, deep embedded in systems of state and power and media and journalism. Those outlier characters like Jones, you can see that guy when he's on there 25 or 30 turning up protesting against wars, telling us way before 9, 11 that it was going to happen and who was going to have done it. If you dismiss that person or if you condemn that person, or if you try to control or shut down that person, there may be reasons for it, but those reasons are not going to be for your protection. And again, another useful paradigm for understanding this is what was the entire mentality behind the pandemic? We have to take these medicines and we have to go into our homes because life is sacred and we have to protect each other no matter what. We especially have to protect the vulnerable. Well, where else do you see them operate in and governing in order to protect the vulnerable? I don't see it. I see exploitation and I see control. Whenever they come to you saying that they want to protect you, they actually want to control you and, you know, from your own life as a parent or someone who Loves anybody. That protection and control are on a spectrum. I want to protect my children, and part of that is I have to control them. But we are children of God. We are not children of the state. The state tells you there is no God. The empire tells you that nothing is real if it can't be measured. And then it acts like a God. It wants to control every aspect of your life. And like God, it wants you to come innocently, like little children, it wants to determine right and wrong, even something like Wokeism. And a couple of times you've said that I'm sort of right wing and I would like to say that I don't agree with those taxonomics, economies or labels anymore. I'm a follower of Jesus. And if more people follow Jesus, I believe the world will just naturally improve because as C.S. lewis said, if you have lawyers that are Christian, they'll. They'll run the law in a Christian way. If you have media commentators that Christian, they'll do their job. Every role could do with Christ being in charge of it. Now, what I see, when you live in an Antichrist world where you deny connection, where you deny eternal life, where you deny the love of God, where you say you just. You're an insignificant set of molecules in infinite space that somehow has evolved to the point where it's even able to make that assessment, which is one of the great paradoxes of atheism, of course, that the instrument with which you've deduced there is no meaning is itself a result of these meaningless procedures. How can you ever make such an assessment while telling us they do that, that they can do that? Their rationalism always leads you to the same. The same place, whether it's the bombast and, you know, let's face it, media brilliance of Donald Trump or the kind of sterile charisma of Barack Obama, it always leads to them being in control. You needing them, you paying too much tax, you ceding too much control, police forces that are disoriented and exhausted and not respected and not living in the communities that they're policing. We can change all of it. We can change it with ideas that people purportedly believe in. Already we've got people in government telling us that they're Christian. Let's see the Christianity we've got.
- [85:55]
Megyn Kelly
People get back to that. Let's do it.
- [85:56]
Russell Brand
And people running every country in the world, more or less, that say they believe in democracy. Democracy, if it doesn't mean that we govern in accordance with the will of the people, means nothing. What democracy means. I have been taught these days is these institutions that we control constitute democracy. We're going to put them all around the world and control them there. Right, but we could have democracy. The technology exists.
- [86:21]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, look, we thought, we, we thought we were getting that when we elected Trump, and we thought that.
- [86:24]
Russell Brand
Did you?
- [86:25]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I did. I don't know, I'm. Maybe I'm naive, I'm, I'm old, but I'm naive. I don't, I just, I just thought that Trump really meant it when he promised to buck the system. He promised he couldn't be bought. He was bought. I mean, like The Miriam Adelson $250 million bought him on Iran and Israel and he's doing exactly what she wanted him to do. He was manipulated by Netanyahu. She's thrilled. This is not what his base wanted and it's unfortunate. I didn't think Trump could be bought. I really believed that he couldn't. It's hugely disappointing and I feel as many do, which is. It's a betrayal. A lot of my audience disagrees with me and I understand they're POV too, but that's how I feel on Trump.
- [87:05]
Russell Brand
What do you think they love about Trump still? Once the migration from America first politics becomes evident, what is it? The charisma, the figure? Because what I like about him is his energy. I was like, Trump was coming into a set when I 2015. I was like, this guy's crazy. That's ridiculous. It's not possible for the second time. But I liked it that the Central Powers didn't get what they wanted. I liked that. Same with, with Brexit. I don't care about Brexit. Eu, not eu. I don't care about admin. But what I like is when you see the people not behave as they're supposed to. I love that. I mean, what is it this time? What's happened, Megan? And what. And people that still love him, what is it that they still love?
- [87:44]
Megyn Kelly
There's a lot. I think his sense of humor is very endearing, is very charming and you know, he can actually be very self deprecating, which is charming too, especially given the amount of power that he has. I think the amount of shit that's been thrown at him and his unwillingness to stay down, you know, he just gets back up no matter what people do to him. No, I mean, try to put him in jail multiple times. They tried to ruin his family, they tried to kill him. You know, I mean, so much has happened to him and he just keeps going like, you just cannot stand him down. And that's very admirable. For most of his time in the public eye, he has had all the right enemies. You know, he's stood up against the race dogma, the trans dogma, the xenophobe dogma, about having a southern border in a way, that was very admirable. And we needed desperately because we were losing those wars. You know, the woke thing was taking over in every department with our children, with our lives and our employment. And Trump was the bulwark against it, saying, hell no. And he had this sheer strength and power to turn it all around. He really did. Like, you know, it was like the parting of the seas. Like, I will just make this happen despite all odds with my immense power. So all of that has been, you know, just inspirational. Inspirational. I think many of us just like Trump, you know, we like his personality. But then the other truth of it is there are aspects of his personality which are obviously not good and that we've mostly just chosen to overlook. You know, he's not a moral man. He's obviously not the greatest husband husband in the world. And he's extremely petty and thin skinned. Extremely petty and thin skinned. And what we're seeing right now is he's turning on his most loyal supporters because they don't support this war and, and getting in bed with people who fucking hate him and have hated him from the beginning and were the original never Trumpers, as though that's what MAGA is, that's what his core support should look like. Meanwhile, there are many who are over here who have loved Trump for many, many years. We've had our skirmishes in the past. Tucker's had skirmishes with him. I have too, but who fought harder than a lot of others during the lawfare against him to make sure people knew that it was bullshit. Stood up for him during the actual electoral contest to make sure people understood what was at stake and why he had to be the choice who he just, you know, there's no loyalty in return, ever, from Trump, ever. If you have a principled disagreement with something he does, you're otherwise, you're the enemy. And at this particular moment, he's alienating so many of his core supporters, biggest believers and boosters, and running to people who have not been able to stand him for 10 years, like a Mark Levin or a Ben Shapiro, who actively was against Trump. He was a total DeSantis guy. He only went on board with Trump when DeSantis was, of course, toast and he had no, no choice, but to save his audience and get on board with the Republican nominee. Whatever. It's, it's, it is what it is. You know, it is what it is. But there's still, in my view, a lot to like about Trump. It's just some of those darker demons are much more in the front view right now because he's like a cornered animal. He's got no support in this Iran war. He can't bring it to an end. These are tough who are not doing what we want them to and coming to the negotiating table and giving us what we want so we can get out and just declare it a winner. He sees his poll numbers are now, his latest poll approval on Iran was 30, at 30%. I mean, his job approval in like the last five polls has been in the low 30s, low 30s. So his legacy's on the line. And you can tell. He can tell. So he's acting out in a very, very bad way. And I, my prayer every night, every night, Russell, is that he will get back on track. He will reconnect with what, you know, the agenda that we put him in office to enact. He will extract himself from this very money driven agenda by the Miriam Adelsons of the world. You know, she's purchasing what she wants and Trump's being manipulated into doing it, which is infuriating. And that the country, or at least those of us who are on what I call Team Sanity, can come back together and work to defeat these crazy leftists like James Carville, who wants to pack the Supreme Court and add puerto Rico and D.C. as state states. Right. Like the Republicans will never win another national election if we do that. 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- [93:30]
Russell Brand
it sounds deeply tumultuous and it sounded like you points feel like personally betrayed as an advocate for Trump and at other times ideologically betrayed. And with this, with this war, some of the larger points I've seen sort of play out over a long time because I don't have anything like the granular detail or the journalistic excellence that you've just displayed in describing that. But from my sort of more vague and hazy perspective, like what I've seen, I've just seen people saying, oh well, Trump always had those views about Iran. Trump always said that's what they say. That's what they say. And other and the our Iran, if they were ever to develop a nuclear capacity that now for me those arguments seem in one case irrelevant, that he's always felt it and in the second instance very similar to the weapons of mass destruction argument that was used that said.
- [94:20]
Megyn Kelly
Exactly.
- [94:21]
Russell Brand
So I, I wonder then what is this force, this power that is so sufficient that it would even see. Don't you sometimes think we've great leaders and great people. All it is is just for a moment they're the temporary conductor, you know, Churchill, very fallible, broken, alcoholic, depressive lunatic who not necessarily lunatic but for for a must moment was able to carry world opposition against as best we can understand, this great force for evil. So with Trump, what do you suppose is happening? Do you think bore in a sort of financial and economic way, do you think compromised in the, in the post epstein world we all have to assume that it seems that people largely are or do you what is this power that is so large that it can wrangle this, this gargantuan male away from what seemed to be his evident trajectory to at least continue to consolidate a very large group of supporters.
- [95:19]
Megyn Kelly
I mean I think on Israel in the Republican Party there's never been any downside to being 100% pro Israel. From the time I started at fox news in 2004 until only very recently in the Republican Party, there was no downside to saying you were 100% on Team Israel to promote Israel, to go visit Israel, to take money from aipac. That was. No one in the Republican politics would ever second guess it or judge it. It's only been more recent because, well, I mean, Gaza, I mean that's, that's really one of the main things. It was happening on the left prior to Gaza. But the violence that Israel unleashed on civilians in Gaza just got to pass the point where you could overlook it as a friend who was like looking at your friend who got attacked viciously on 10, 7 and trying to look the other way like, like some of these civilian casualties are going to happen. It's war. It happened when we did wars too. But like to the point where it's like, geez, like this is out of control, like it defended you a lot of times on the genocide claim, you know, tens of thousands more and more and more, you're kind of undermining my ability to root for you, never mind defend you. And I think Republicans started to feel it too. Young Republicans first. And they started to migrate away from Israel. So the stakes changed like this ardent support of Israel no longer became totally acceptable within Republican politics. And the coalition that was totally pro Israel started to fracture. The Democrats left, the independents left, the Republicans started to trickle away with the youth first, going entirely, entirely. And now the only people who really support Israel are senior citizen Republicans, people basically who are 65 or around there or older and Republican. Those are the ones who are still pro Israel, which includes Trump. And he didn't get it. Like he did not have his finger on the pulse of where the party was on Israel. And still I think thought he could do something that would be great for Israel, which is start a war with Iran. And it would go over well, that his core base would applaud him for it. And I believe him that he never wanted Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I think those statements were sincere. But more than that, he promised no new wars and no wars in the Middle east, which last time I checked, I includes Iran. And so. But if Trump had looked at us and said, and Tulsi Gabbard had looked at us and Joe Kent had looked at us and the IAEA had looked at us and said, iran is within a month of getting a nuclear bomb, the country would have stood behind Trump, we would have believed them. But that's not what happened. The IAEA and Tulsi and Joe Kent, they all said, no, they're not. They don't have the capacity to get a nuclear bomb. They're nowhere close to getting a nuclear bomb. And by the way, those effects, those strikes we did last June were very effective in dismantling whatever nuclear program they had, whether it was civilian or not. And they had been enriching beyond civilian needs. So it wasn't true that they were about to get it. If it had been, the country would have gotten behind him and we would have looked at that secret escape hatch from no new wars of unless Iran's about to get a nuclear weapon. It wasn't true. He used that, that excuse that he had always said they can't have a nuclear bomb to do what Netanyahu wanted him to do and what Netanyahu convinced Trump to do, which was to start a war with them. And he did that because he was razzle dazzled by Netanyahu into believing that the Ayatollah is going to be above ground. So are his top emissaries. We can take them out. They try to kill you now, you can get him before he gets you. It'll be like Venezuela. You'll get in, you'll get out, you'll be a hero. You'll change the whole world. Because a kinder, gentler, Jeb Bartlett type is going to take over in Iran and be the new Ayatollah, the sweet loving one who sends his cookies upon his ascension. And, and Trump listened Netanyahu playing him like a fiddle. He played to his hubris, which is exactly how you're supposed to manipulate Trump. All these world leaders know it. Look how they bend the knee at NATO now. You know it's ridiculous.
- [99:08]
Russell Brand
Oh my daddy or daddy.
- [99:10]
Megyn Kelly
It's like, oh my God. That's what they do. Look at the, look at the cabinet members at the cabinet meetings. Oh yeah, thanks to you, Mr. President. It's like they all have to kiss his ass before they give their updates because they're trying to manipulate him into keeping them in their roles and into liking them. And that's all well and good. It never really bothered me that much. I don't love it, but it doesn't. But when it's working to start wars, it's deeply problematic. And it's how we got in this mess with people.
- [99:38]
Russell Brand
I say Thomas Massie, who would have long contested this, would play out in this manner or any average pick em at random Democrat that would have said if. Well, don't you remember what they were saying is if you vote for Trump, it's going to bring about global annihilation and the world, all of the, you know what they, what they call Trump derangement syndrome. Now, do you say that your adjustment is as a result of action and therefore legitimate? And anyone, like, whether it's you or Tucker or Candace or people whose opinions matter in this country, you have a responsibility to alter your perspective on the basis. Basis of new information and evidence, or do you cons or is there a concession to be made to those people that prior to the Trump 0.20, however you say that thing were saying, you can't have this guy in charge of narcissist. You know, all of the stuff that they said, do you feel any of that? Or is it like. Because where I am. Not that you've asked, but like, you know, just to add this, is that we all feel that politicians like Barack Obama, Netanyahu, Tony Blair, not we all. Some people feel that those people are kind of. Whether they're the sort of compromised political class that is epitomized by the Epstein stuff or not, there is some way that they are controlled. That's what people feel. They're controlled. They're not really in charge. There's a set of powers that are beyond and behind them. And maybe it's a cultist, maybe not difficult to corroborate. Who knows? Where do you stand on that? And do you not feel. What do you feel now? Like, where do we go now? Because you're not gonna get another Trump. You're not gonna get another populist like that. Yeah. So, like, where do you put your political vigor and influence in light of all this?
- [101:20]
Megyn Kelly
Well, I certainly am not thinking, gee, we should have gone with Kamala.
- [101:23]
Russell Brand
Yeah.
- [101:23]
Megyn Kelly
At all. I mean, because as. As upset as many of us are about this war, Trump closed the border, which saved countless lives. Trump did issue a bunch of his executive orders on the trans issue, which saved a bunch of children's lives.
- [101:39]
Russell Brand
And, you know, Trump, Kennedy, hhs. That's all good.
- [101:42]
Megyn Kelly
Huge. I mean, we could do more. I have to be honest. Like, there's more that Kennedy could do. Stand by. Let's leave it there. I'm gonna. I'm gonna take a break, do an ad, and we're gonna pick it back up on the opposite side with Russell Brand by his book how to Become a Christian in Seven Days. He sticks around. Quick break first. Okay. Let's talk about an uncomfortable reality. What happens financially to our loved ones once we pass away? We put off thinking about it. I know. I do it too. But the best thing we can do for our family is to ensure that they're not left with a financial burden. Of mortgages and tuitions and medical bills. All of it, right? Like if you think about it, like take one day to think about it and you don't have to think about it again. Fortunately, taking steps to financially protect your family is so much easier nowadays than it used to be. This is where Ethos comes in. Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy. And it's 100% online. You don't even have to see a real person. You can get a quote in seconds, you can apply in minutes, you can get same day coverage. There's no medical exam and all you need to do is just answer a few simple health questions and you will get up to potentially 3 million in coverage. least you can. If you qualify, you will get the lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers. Some policies as low as 30 bucks a month.
- [102:55]
Russell Brand
Month.
- [102:55]
Megyn Kelly
It's no wonder why Ethos has 4.8 out of 5 stars now on Trustpilot with over 4000 reviews. Take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote@ethos.com MK that's e t h o s.com MK application times may vary. Rates may vary. On Deck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team or bridging cash flow gaps, On Deck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five star trust pilot reviews, Ondeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes@ondeck.com depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by Ondeck or Celtic Bank. Ondeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans an amount subject to lender approval. Hey everyone, it's me, Megyn Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on SiriusXM. It's called the Megyn Kelly Channel. And it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megyn Kelly show, you're gonna hear from people like Mark Halperin. Link Lauren Maureen Callahan, Emily Drishinski, Jesse Kelly, RealClear Politics, and many more. It's bold. No BS news only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, SiriusXM 111 and on the Sirius XM app. We are back now with Russell Brand. His new book is How Become a Christian in seven days. It's out now. Go get it on Tucker Carlson.com because this is the first of the new Tucker imprints. So we were talking about Trump when we last left off, which is. That's all we've been talking about for 10 years. Like, Trump dominates every thought and every conversation. But what were you trying to ask me?
- [104:46]
Russell Brand
Well, I'm trying to ask you anything. I was successfully asking you. Sorry, sorry. Where do you put your political enthusiasm in if you've been disabused of the notion that any political leader, no matter how charismatic and demagogic, is gonna achieve anything ultimately, that they will ultimately be subsumed by some invisible interests that appear to steer world power? What do you think?
- [105:06]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. And you were saying, could it happen to, like, a Thomas Massie? I actually don't think it could happen to a Thomas Massie. I don't think it could happen to a Rand Paul.
- [105:13]
Russell Brand
No, I was using Thomas Massie as an example of someone that sort of trod the line. Like that guy. He's, no, this is my views. This is my views. They're trying to buy me. I'm not doing it like someone that's sort of shown kind of an integrity, and I mean integrity in the sense of he's remained sort of in a lineman.
- [105:28]
Megyn Kelly
And I think there was a red flag on Trump because what was he at heart, a dealmaker?
- [105:32]
Russell Brand
Right.
- [105:33]
Megyn Kelly
He's been a dealmaker his whole life. And that should have been maybe more of a red flag that he. He would say. There's no core principles in there that are driving him on. On most issues. Like, there were a couple. Like, I do believe he's against illegal immigration. I do believe he saw genuine concerns around the trade war and manufacturing and what China was doing. I think that was sincere. And we've seen him try to do something about that. He's got sincere beliefs about doing business with other nations and how we can make America richer. And I think, like, all that Glad Henning he did with his Saudi Arabia summit, where he's like, yeah, you're gonna invest in America, Great. We're all gonna get rich. We don't have to, like, hate each other anymore. I think that was sincere. But that deal maker thing is probably what got us into trouble on. On the Iran thing. So I don't know. I rarely put my faith in politicians. I'm not sure I ever really totally put it in Trump. I fell in love with Trump's professional promises to us. Like, I really believed he would close the border, he would kick out the illegals, that he would stop the trans mania. I believe that he would crack down on crime to the extent you can at the federal level. And I have to say he's lived up to those promises, except for the deportations, he has closed the border, he has done a lot on trans, he has tried to do what a president can on crime. And I'm grateful for all those things. But you know, this other stuff, Epstein, Iran, the economy have been pretty disastrous.
- [107:02]
Russell Brand
Okay. So it's like you are quite objective. And while I'm listening to you, I'm remembering that famous moment, I think in the primaries where he said red eyes
- [107:11]
Megyn Kelly
and red blood coming out of my eyes and out of my wherever.
- [107:14]
Russell Brand
So it's a kind of like, that's kind of one of the most sort of memorable and like, whoa, Trump kind of pop culture moments. But now from a, it seems from a well versed, studied and journalistic perspective, you're saying that Trump isn't fulfilling his pledge to his voter base. And what I'm curious about is do. The problem we have, Megan, as content creators is that we can just live in the mad vicissitudes of never ending conflicts and just of find a path through it. Someone's telling me, oh, a lot of people think that Tucker has become more expressive or condemnatory of Trump and in particular regarding foreign policy in Israel, obviously that there's a kind of a tactical move as a strategic move as a way of garnering audience. And yeah, I really don't feel that either about Tucker at all or anyone actually or, you know, people we're discussing. But so, but what I'm trying to ask and, and I suppose now I am trying to ask is like, where do you put your enthusiasm now? Because 28 JD Vance. Like where do you go? Okay, but this time because me, I can't. I've reverted to where I was as a kid and a smackhead, a drug addict, saying you can't vote, trust any of them because there are systems that control them and it doesn't matter how as long as these systems are fundamentally controlled by the same interest, whether they're glowing, global, bureaucratic or deep state.
- [108:36]
Megyn Kelly
They call that being black pilled.
- [108:38]
Russell Brand
So where do we, as if that if we're black pilled then. And me as a follower of Jesus and you're Christian. Hey, yeah, right. So where do we go? Where do we go when it comes to advocacy? What are you saying?
- [108:51]
Megyn Kelly
Well, the next, the next step is relative evils.
- [108:54]
Russell Brand
Oh, great. Well, I don't like that.
- [108:56]
Megyn Kelly
I know it's unfortunate, but that's the next logical step because it is a binary system that one of them is going to ascend to power and you have to choose the lesser of two evils. That's really what it's always been about, you know, I mean, even with Trump, you know, he asked me to come speak for him and go to that rally and sort of endorse him the night before the vote. And I did wrestle with it, but something inside of me told me, you have to do it. Because I knew. I knew we'd be in far worse shape if Kamala Harris won. She could not win. There was just absolutely no way we could allow that. So it wasn't like I love and adore Trump. You know, personally, he and I have always had a friction between us. You know, it's been very complicated between us for many, many years, which is good. I would take complicated. I'm a journalist. You know, I never wanted to be his bootlicker, and I never have been. I never have been. He and I have had ups and downs, and I've been critical at times and very, very promotional at other times, but I knew that he was better than she was.
- [110:00]
Russell Brand
Yeah.
- [110:01]
Megyn Kelly
And I still feel like we'll have to make that choice next time around. But look, I. I have voted in nine presidential elections. Five of them I voted Republican, and four of them I voted Democrat. And they have. It wasn't all like the four when I was super young, you know, like, I am a true independent. I will make up my mind based on the person who gets the nomination and go from there. And what does the country look like? What are the issues that are really important right now?
- [110:29]
Russell Brand
But, Megan, from where we are now, what level of independence does that demonstrate, really, when surely what we have agreed on is that there is no meaningful transaction taking place in the tension of a bipartisan system.
- [110:43]
Megyn Kelly
But take what I just said. If your top issue is. And my two top issues were the border and the trans thing, and Trump did a good job on those. I'd like the deportations to. To happen. But, like, we've made so much progress on the trans thing. We're not. We are still cutting off the penises of little boys, but not as often as. As we used to.
- [111:01]
Russell Brand
I did one this morning, and the. The whole.
- [111:06]
Megyn Kelly
The whole messaging around it has changed. The Olympics change. This is all thanks to Trump. All these hospitals are stopping the procedures. That's thanks to Trump. So we've gotten something.
- [111:16]
Russell Brand
But compared to potential Armageddon and yielding to perhaps the supreme forces that ultimately control the world, those are Pyrrhic victories indeed. And somebody had to.
- [111:26]
Megyn Kelly
Somebody had to ascend. So what are you going to do like completely withdraw from the process altogether. Seed the arguments. Let, let the Democrats make two new states so we'll never see a Republican in national power again. Like, no, I have to fight those battles.
- [111:40]
Russell Brand
What if the. Can we not generate new battles by proposing radical systemic change and the radical decentralization of political power? I'm asking you this.
- [111:54]
Megyn Kelly
You have to get rid of the two party system. Yeah. The first thing you'd have to do is get rid of the two party primary system.
- [111:59]
Russell Brand
Cool. Just do that. I mean, you know, so like, you know, why are people not acknowledging that if the technology exists for all of us to carry digital ID, essentially 70 of the global population to get vaccinated overnight from a either a made up or potentially not as threatening as it was presented disease, then why don't we collectively, particularly people that have extraordinary sway and indeed, if you are about to face extraordinary attacks, it's precisely as a result of the influence and impact you can have. Why, I'm curious, genuinely, it's a real question because I'm trying to understand it myself. What if these voices in independent media became overtly and deliberately active in politics? Doesn't that that have the extraordinary salve of resolving these cultural issues instantly, I. E. If there is a community that wants to be run according, in accordance with Sharia law within some state somewhere, then allow them to democratically do it. If there is a community that want to have a sort of a trans utopia, allow them to do it. However, in these communities, we want to maximally run them in accordance with these principles. In a sense, what is the point of nations of this size and scale? Do you not consider that the rise of nationalism was itself a response to globalism and people beginning to sense that there was no national sovereignty in France or in Germany, or in Sri Lanka or in the United States of America? And if you look at trends like for example the Russian of agricultural protests, it's an indication that through global bureaucratic edicts they're trying to control food sourcing. And indeed then, if there is a global problem, perhaps because of the miracle of this new communication in which you are a leader, that we could be advocating not just for a different incumbent in a corrupt system, but a different system entirely. And it's not that long ago, 250 years or wherever it was since the establishment of your great country, that even when the war of independence was won against the that other country, don't remember who lost it, but I'm sure they had some good points and a reasonable king who was not syphilis syphilitic and mad. They that many, Isn't it Patrick Henry, what said we've got go further you too much centralization empower states and then the states empower communities and the communities empower the individual. And you have to end. Don't the don't. The problem of donation has to end. Lobbying has to end. Unless. Unless you make those kind of proposals. Unless you make the position of leadership a position of service so that you don't even attract.
- [114:35]
Megyn Kelly
Smaller or just smaller.
- [114:36]
Russell Brand
Whatever possible.
- [114:37]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, Much, much smaller.
- [114:39]
Russell Brand
De Ideologize it.
- [114:41]
Megyn Kelly
Look, I love your optimism. I guess I'm just a cynical mofo at heart where I'm like, that's never gonna happen. The corporate money. I'm a little cynical on this front. I just feel like there's too much money, there are too many entrenched interests that control all of this that I feel no cogs in the wheel are going to change it. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I should be more optimistic.
- [115:01]
Russell Brand
No cogs in the wheel.
- [115:02]
Megyn Kelly
But I will say one thing to your point, I think that this little ecosystem of, you know, independent voices is important.
- [115:11]
Russell Brand
People are getting killed for it.
- [115:12]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [115:13]
Russell Brand
People are getting shot dead in public because of the impact. It seems to me people are having their reputations tarnished I think precisely because of that.
- [115:20]
Megyn Kelly
That.
- [115:21]
Russell Brand
So what my interest is, is why are we pretending that we are at an advantage? When you centralize power, of course there are areas where central coordination is beneficial, but we're at the pos. But the principle ought be decentralization and democracy. These are not new ideas. If the technology that existed today, existed when this nation was founded, how much would they. How much power would they have afforded at the local level? They would have afforded more. Yeah.
- [115:51]
Megyn Kelly
Now that technology, that of course was the original ideal anyway. That was the whole goal of having these little states that were experimental and a very small national federal government that would. We'd all join and that would be sort of. We'd have some basic ideals that would be enforced at that level, but that each state could have its own personality and its own laws and its own culture. That was always the vision for America. It's only as the country went on that we got a more bloated and empowered federal government that we then. And ceded a bunch of powers, you know, from the congressional branch, which is the people's representative, to the executive branch. It's gotten bigger and bigger under Obama, under Biden and now under Trump. I'd love to get back to where we have a very, very, very tiny disempowered executive who really can't do much. Yeah, that'd be great. That would be much more consistent with the way the founders wanted the country to be ran.
- [116:45]
Russell Brand
And now with the technology that we have, that flow, that charge could be reversed. It's absolutely possible that people could participate in democracy. Democracy in the. When I've had to do it like in 12 step groups that I'm a member of, they're democratic and it's slow and it's boring and it doesn't matter how well you think you talk or how charismatic you think you are, you. You only have one vote and you only have one voice. And so if they're gonna. If they want a coffee machine, they'll get one. If they don't want a coffee machine, they won't get one. It's humbling and it's cohesive. And he has no favorites, our Lord. He sees us all. You're all just my kids. I love you all. I made you perfect, an individual. You're exactly as you're my meant to be. And then we won't dislocate into bizarre crazes like wokeism, the important principle of kindness and compassion. We know that our Lord, if he were here, would love people that were confused and broken and concerned and trying to align their inner self with an outer world that they felt didn't understand them. We know that the broken that were lost in the fentanyl crisis would find comfort in him. I feel that he has to have the government resting on his shoulders. We can't let human beings run society through rationalism with the idea that human authority and the human mind is the supreme system of judgment. And I feel like I know what I'm asking actually, because I don't know anything. What the last few years has taught me is how little I know about anything. But same, I'm wondering, oh my God, same. Why not have dissolve. Dissolve power wherever possible, wherever possible, allow people to run their own communities locally. Grow food locally. Do not put poisonous substances into food or water or the air. Do not try to control nature. Have independence when it comes to the manufacturing of your food and utilities. Lose your obsession and fixation with gadgets and endless progress. It's not going to answer the problem. Even the mad and giddy progress and ascent of the false gods of neuralink et al, will come tumbling down eventually. We are made to be custodians and stewards to the land. And we're here to love one another. And these Ideas are perfectly expressed. And the miracle of my Christianity. Let me for one second talk about this book and not do my trial practice, which you have been very good at. Thank you for being a compassionate and judicious interrogator when it's come to those complex matters. But what I really want to say is that the. The reason I became Christian is because what I had learned as an addict in recovery, that this world can never give you what you think it can give you. Not through drugs, not through sex, not through fame, not for approval, applause or anything. Christ has it for you already and he's waiting to give it to you. And I thought I was so smart. I thought I was so smart. I'm countercultural. Before you was talking about red pills and blue pills, I'd already taken so many hallucinogens, I'd say, seen through all of the veils and walls of your phony systems. Then I read that book, the Holy Book. I read the Bible. And what does it say in there? Throughout the New Testament, Be careful. In this world, the devil's in control. It's fallen into the control of someone who's going to create systems that seem like God's kingdom, but they're actually false. Completely false. Don't trust any leaders. They're all broken and fallen. Even the wisest kings we've ever had may fall into corruption and concubines and idiocy because of hubris, because of vanity. Vanity. All is vanity. What do I learn in there? That God loves us so much that not only does he create us to be in relationship with one another, that he is willing to absorb all of our sins and our brokenness and the worst things you could say about yourself and think about yourself. He knows them all and he loves you anyway. And it doesn't matter if you think you're born in the wrong body. And it doesn't matter if you think you don't fit in with this tribe or that tribe, or you don't fit in or you don't belong. He loves you. He made you to be as you are. And we can't outsource power anymore to ideologues who don't understand the most basic principles of unison. We are all his son. He loves all of us. He don't want us hating Muslims. He doesn't want us hating gay people or trans people or people south of the border or north of the border. He wants us to be one family. And reason decoupled from the divine leads to a kind of insanity. But reason is A perfect and beautiful tool for organizing resources if we recognize our place as his children. But when we start to clamber above him, which, by the way, was the floor of Satan, Satan's self, the fallen one who wants to run his own counterfeit kingdom, who thinks there is no God, who poses as a God, then we get into very, very deep trouble. So I don't even really care if this book gets read or not read or creates one, Christian or no, Christians or many, many Christians. All I'm really interested in is participating in something truthful and valuable. Even when I come on your podcast, I don't want to sit here and try and persuade people that I am something that I'm not, although I wasn't something that other people say I am. I'm gonna die. You're gonna die. We're all gonna die. That's the truth of our situation. Now, while we're here, do you want to stay in some stupid fetishized hatred, or do you want to participate in the coming of His Kingdom, which is what you are called to do? And if ideas occur to you that might bring that about, don't be afraid to openly share them. Don't be afraid to notice that the technology that you vote for Pop idols or X Factors or some dumb thing for could be used to say, I don't want to have a war with Iran. I don't want one. I'm not sending you my taxes. I'm not doing that anymore. We're not being radical enough. We're not being Christian enough.
- [122:09]
Megyn Kelly
Enough.
- [122:09]
Russell Brand
We've forgotten who the God is that died for us. You have to be bold, and you have to be willing to die for it. And given what you're saying on your show right now, it seems like you're willing to die for what you believe in. Yeah. So die for something worth believing.
- [122:22]
Megyn Kelly
It's a risk we're all taking every day these days. I mean, just being bold with our opinions and saying them unapologetically, given the environment we're in. So what about the title? Can you. Can you expand on that for the listening audience? How to Become a Christian in Seven Days. Days. What is it with the seven days?
- [122:37]
Russell Brand
I liked that the world was created in seven days, or all of reality was created in seven days. And of course, it can't have been, because day is a, you know, a rotational astrophysical phenomena. So 7, it's the number that means completeness become complete. And then I like that it had that little potential for a joke. How to become Christian in seven days may take 50 years. And initially it said and and false rape charges to get started. But then when I was showing my daughters the book cover, I didn't want to have to explain, so I changed it to serious F ups. Yeah, that and so that's what it means. It means that and also coming Christian. It's not like you actually, you already are a Christian. You've just forgotten. Because what it means is you're the follower of the way. That's what it was called in the first place. There is this way. There is a right choice, righteous path you can see as a neurological path if you want to, because such things surely exist. MRIs reveal that. Or you can see it as a geographical one, or you can see it in a whole bunch of meridian, myriad meridian ways. But there is a path, there is a way, there is a calling. There is a real you that you've always known you were. And you got distracted at points by glamour and the things of this world. But there is a home calling for you in a way. The likes of you and me are participating in a apostasy. We are leaving a culture that told us you are the golden and blonded goddess woman. That's actually smart. You, you poor broken, silly little boy, go out there and womanize. We can leave that false priesthood. We can leave that and we can participate in something valuable. And all it really is is God, incarnated God within you. You can know God yourself. You don't need brokerage. You don't need any institutions, whether they're vast and wonderful like the Roman Catholic Church or disparate and magnificent like the evangelical movement in this country or traditional like the one the Church of England in mine. You don't need that brokerage. He is here now with you. He died for you. And he spent quite a lot of his time actually saying you lot that are saying you're the authorities are really misrepresenting the message as I understand it, using the word with the Pharisees to demonstrate to them them exactly how they've gone wrong. That there are two forces of power on this world, Babylon, the power of empire that wants to control you militarily and the Pharisaic class that wants to control you ideologically. And our Lord, he came to oppose both of them and to let them know that they were both wrong and forgiven and that we as individuals could follow him. And what we have a chance to do. And what I'm really trying to put across in this book, actually, and I'll shut up is. It's in the Bible. All these things that I thought I'd understood, like, I can't trust this system. I need the mystery of God. Where is God? I feel so alone. I'm so broken. All the things I was looking for in LSD and false intimacy, all the things I was trying to rant about, mtv, VMA Awards, it's all in there. He's telling you it's all explained in his own language. And I like it. Like when he came to me, he came to me as a feeling in my abdomen, in my gut. It came in an instant, a suicidal moment. I knew Christ was real, like Jesus from school and nativity plays and boring. That is real. And from that moment on, I had to read the Bible. And I read it and then I learned, oh my God. All of it is all in here. It's all real. And it's so close to being crazy. It's so close to being crazy. It's so close to folklore and mythology. But these Edgeland ideologues that we've cited already today, the Alex Joneses, who is a Christian, of course, Source or David Ike, who's vehemently opposed to Christianity, tell you continually there are demonic, difficult to detect forces that are controlling our reality supernaturally. They tell you that institutions are controlled by occultist endeavors. They tell you that there are paedophile cults sacrificing children. None of that's not in the Bible. Every single thing that I've just said is in the Bible. There are demons, there are devils, there are angels, there were giants. To conquer those giants, you're going to to have have to think different. You're going to have to think different. Ah, the sad ingenuity of Steve Jobs wrestled towards just making gadgetry when he understood something vital. Connection and extension of yourself through technology could bring about his kingdom, the merging of the kingdoms. A new kingdom is coming. It's changing. It's happening now. It's happening now through eternity, in this moment, now through him. And we can be participating participants in it if we're. And this is where it's wonderful because everyone thinks, what can I do? Like you just said, I'm just a cog in the machine and all of that. Well, you're actually a pretty important cog. You're a vital cog. You are a perfect cog. You're interconnecting, actually, you specifically, Megan, beloved Megyn Kelly, are connecting with millions of millions of people. And people actually really care about what you're saying. And if they hear Your optimism and your faith and your boldness and your bravery, which they are hearing every day. Then they will understand it. They will know it. Your. The sheep will hear their. The shepherd's voice voice. They will hear it in you. They're hearing it now. Even in someone as broken, as messed up, as selfish, as foolish as me.
- [127:35]
Megyn Kelly
They know, right? We all have those foibles expressed in different sins and different mistakes. But we all have those foibles. And speaking of Katy Perry,
- [127:45]
Russell Brand
that was pretty skillful. Go on in, go on.
- [127:48]
Megyn Kelly
Well, I wonder.
- [127:48]
Russell Brand
I've met Doug now and I like him. Yeah, I'm gonna read them books of
- [127:52]
Megyn Kelly
Doug I think you'll really enjoy.
- [127:53]
Russell Brand
Historical novel plus his double hat. Handsome.
- [127:55]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, right.
- [127:56]
Russell Brand
Double Dutch handsome. You said he looks like a Dutch.
- [127:59]
Megyn Kelly
He looks like a Dutch. He is Dutch and he looks Dutch. He's tall, he's got the wide set eyes, he's got the angular face.
- [128:04]
Russell Brand
Touch that Dutch now. But check first. Don't put them clogs on without asking. Don't you put that finger in that dyke without asking. Don't you spin them windmills. Well, don't you go that Anne Frank museum.
- [128:16]
Megyn Kelly
Who talked about a finger in a dike?
- [128:17]
Russell Brand
That's a Dutch story. Yeah, just kidding, sorry. Gotta be careful these days.
- [128:21]
Megyn Kelly
I went with it.
- [128:23]
Russell Brand
Although look about where you're gonna go and you'll see a double joke because you're gonna go back to your subject.
- [128:29]
Megyn Kelly
Yes, right.
- [128:29]
Russell Brand
And the last thing I said was fingers.
- [128:31]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, that's true.
- [128:31]
Russell Brand
You're gonna say.
- [128:32]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, so. Well, how. What is it like to have your ex wife dating dyke Justin Trudeau?
- [128:38]
Russell Brand
I've put up with a lot with that ex wife of mine. But you took it too far. KP with true Orlando Bloom. Yeah, respectable Legolas. I love that guy. Yeah, brilliant. Good coverage. Trudeau though. Potentially Fidel Castro's spawn. No, there we draw the line.
- [128:57]
Megyn Kelly
Horrible.
- [128:58]
Russell Brand
I did not like that Trudeau because. No, he's a son of. He's a child of God and he's beloved. But what I will say is I didn't like it when he was having a go at them truckers. I didn't like. They kept blacking up inexplicably and then sort of pretended to be ultra woke. He does have fantastic hair. I didn't like it when they, they invited, I think an actual Nazi into the Canadian parliament. Yes, they did. I specifically don't like what is typified by those good looking politicians. Obama, Macron, Blair. They're sort of good looking and they're charming. But you think, what? Who do you work for? Really? Who's running this? Because it can't be you. And I don't like that sort of pose of compassion that's absolutely undergirded by selfishness. Probably because I recognize it myself. I'm so selfish sometimes. Sometimes. But I don't like that. The trucker bit is what got me. They called them Nazis. They were just being sort of bold and brave and stuff. So. Yes. Is she still going out with him?
- [129:47]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, we checked this morning and it appears that they are still together.
- [129:51]
Russell Brand
Keep checking. She. She could come to her senses any minute.
- [129:55]
Megyn Kelly
It is disappointing, isn't it? When your ex gets together with somebody who like, doesn't make you look good at all. Doesn't. Doesn't increase the average at all.
- [130:02]
Russell Brand
Look at the category on I'm in with Trudeau. It'll be a relief to be in a rape trial. See? Phew.
- [130:12]
Megyn Kelly
Never lose your sense of humor. Not even about the darkness.
- [130:15]
Russell Brand
Stay away from your baby.
- [130:17]
Megyn Kelly
Do you guys keep in touch? She said you never contacted her again after you sent her a note saying you wanted a divorce.
- [130:23]
Russell Brand
Look, that is true.
- [130:25]
Megyn Kelly
Wow. Never anything. Not a text.
- [130:28]
Russell Brand
I stay in touch with her father, Keith and her mother Mary. Cause they're good Christian folks. And I must say feel a good deal of sympathy with the recent allegations around Katie.
- [130:40]
Megyn Kelly
She's been accused of 2000 sexually assaulting Ruby Rose by allegedly like exposing her vag to this gal's face. Which she's denied. But there's a criminal inquiry underway in Australia. As I read about that allegations.
- [130:52]
Russell Brand
To me, that doesn't. I mean, this is probably the old school man in me. I don't. I don't even hear the crime there. What happened. I don't even. I can't even hear where it is. Like someone would have to poke me with a stick there. That's the bit. There's a crime.
- [131:05]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, wait, no, no. 20 year old girl wants another woman rubbing her vag on her face uninvited.
- [131:11]
Russell Brand
That's the crime.
- [131:12]
Megyn Kelly
There it is. Russell.
- [131:13]
Russell Brand
I got it. Thank you.
- [131:14]
Megyn Kelly
I got you.
- [131:15]
Russell Brand
Are you available for the troll? The tuck is coming.
- [131:19]
Megyn Kelly
Yes, I will come.
- [131:20]
Russell Brand
Thank you.
- [131:20]
Megyn Kelly
She. She denies again. Katy Perry denies.
- [131:23]
Russell Brand
I didn't handle that marriage very well. I can see in retrospect, absolutely what the problem was. In fact, I explained that in the book what it was we say said
- [131:28]
Megyn Kelly
you were married to celebrity itself.
- [131:30]
Russell Brand
I worked it out.
- [131:31]
Megyn Kelly
So. How so?
- [131:32]
Russell Brand
Well, because I, you know, look, when you fall in love with someone like Isn't it amazing to be in love? Isn't it so amazing? Well, imagine that sort of compounded with everyone else acting like it's important. It's like, oh my God, this is overwhelming. Plus she's a really lovely. You know what there is about her? She's, she's has an innocence. She's a very beautiful person. She's also incredibly driven and worked really, really hard. I saw her working really, really hard. Hard. Here's me taking total responsibility for all the mistakes I made in that marriage. I like wanted to grab her like a kind of there got it, you know, like I wanted, I felt like I was inadequate and not enough on my own. So I saw this big glorious thing and even though I knew her as a person as well, I'm supposed to a normal person, like everyone's a normal person. You've been around famous people. You know who's famous when it comes to shower time, picking your nose, scratching your ass, like everyone just bright breaks down into mundanity and flesh and fallenness in the end. But she was really, really, really, really lovely. But it was my fault because I pushed to get married early because I felt inadequate and insecure and like I wasn't enough and that if I was married to her that I would somehow be a better person and more important. And that put her under an unnecessary amount of pressure and strain. And then when she was unable as a very young woman, like she was 25 or 26, she was young herself. There, there I. She couldn't fulfill those obligations. But she was quite rightly, one might argue, certainly from a materialist and humanistic and celebrity oriented perspective, pursuing her dream, of which she successfully did, of becoming the world's most famous pop star. And when she was doing that, I was in sort of a crisis of like, hold on a minute, I'm lonely and this isn't working. This isn't working. I'm. Why do I not feel we've married a pop star?
- [133:11]
Megyn Kelly
I did it.
- [133:12]
Russell Brand
Come on. Why, why is this not working?
- [133:16]
Megyn Kelly
So do you feel like if she weren't a celebrity it could have worked?
- [133:21]
Russell Brand
Probably not because like I was fated to marry my incredible wife, Laura Brand, who is sort of who I already knew and had already married. But I didn't, you know, I didn't learn the lesson. Then I went on to go with Jemima Khan who was married to the now jailed former leader of Pakistan, who went out with you Grant a bunch. She was like a billionaires and glorious and amazing hair and a 300 acre estate and riches. And I thought, yes, yes, this, then I will be okay. Yes, that's it. I got some of the details wrong. It wasn't American pop star. It was British aristocrat. Then, of course, once again, she's a human being and I, in my own foolish way, objectified her. So I had to learn that lesson. Finally, I think now I have learned. Don't try to take things from people. Just leave people alone. Be happy in your marriage and serve God. God as best you can. And remember, you're going to forget that all the time like an idiot and go back to thinking life's about you. But then you've now hopefully a part of a community. See Jake there, who's with me? Like, I have people around me now who are. They're following God in their own broken way. And I just can look at them, how they're doing it, you know?
- [134:24]
Megyn Kelly
Now as I'm listening to you talk, I have this fear in the back of my head.
- [134:27]
Russell Brand
Russell, what is it?
- [134:28]
Megyn Kelly
I. I'm worried about your criminal trial. I don't think that you're going to get a fair shake in Great Britain. Oh, no, they love to put people in jail.
- [134:36]
Russell Brand
Oh, no, I don't want to go to jail. It's my strong preference to not go to jail.
- [134:41]
Megyn Kelly
So what if you go to jail? What kind of jail time would you be facing if the worst?
- [134:44]
Russell Brand
I don't know. I mean, I think if you are convicted of being a rapist, you go to jail for a very long time, which, if you are a rapist, I think is only right and only fair.
- [134:54]
Megyn Kelly
Yes, but what if. What if you're not and you're not convicted anyway?
- [134:57]
Russell Brand
That's not fair. That would be what we call injustice.
- [135:00]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, but I actually have a worry that. That they'll send you because maybe. What if it is part of your path? What if you're supposed to be, like, ministering to men in jail or changing the lives of the least fortunate among us and this is part of, you know, God's plan for you?
- [135:14]
Russell Brand
If it's God's plan, then there's no point resisting it, is there? If it's God's plan, then off I go. And I will serve him there. Oh, if that's God's plan, I don't like that idea much because I'd much rather be with my little children than my wife. Herbie is two and a half, Mabel is nine. Peggy is seven.
- [135:30]
Megyn Kelly
They're a little. Yeah, those are. You're still in the two single digits,
- [135:34]
Russell Brand
but Surely you can't prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone raped someone if they've not raped someone. Or prove.
- [135:39]
Megyn Kelly
Will it be jury trials?
- [135:41]
Russell Brand
Yeah, they've not banned them yet in the uk they're trying, but they've not. They've not managed to.
- [135:45]
Megyn Kelly
That's good. That's. That's good.
- [135:46]
Russell Brand
12 human beings like me that will, like, look and see what goes so
- [135:50]
Megyn Kelly
hard to defend yourself against something that you may or may not have done 20 years ago. Like, that's the problem that we have with, you know, like the case against Trump, the civil rape allegation that he faced by Eugene Carroll, which she won.
- [136:03]
Russell Brand
Was that in. In the changing room one?
- [136:06]
Megyn Kelly
Yes, in Bergdorf Goodman. Bergdorf Goodman. That he allegedly grabbed her and raped her in a. It was 30, 35 years earlier. It's like, how are you supposed to. After all that time? Or what happened to Justice Kavanaugh, our Supreme Court justice, who got accused of. Of sexually molesting a woman 30 years earlier? Like, you have no papers to show where you actually were that day. You don't have a contemporary's memory of. I absolutely was not doing that with you because I was at a Starbucks and here's my receipt. It's very, very hard to disprove the
- [136:34]
Russell Brand
legal standard, Megan, is beyond reasonable doubt that this person did it. Beyond. It'll be not reasonable to doubt it if you're like, I doubt that happened. That's. You know, and one might think that 25, 30 years ago in itself is reasonable doubt, unless you're able to. And, like, look, the thing I take heart from is I go in myself and I look at and I see. I try my best to see myself as he sees me, and I see what I am. Oh, you idiot. You fool. You poor, broken, silly boy. I don't see. Oh, yeah, Then there was that time, you know, like this, like this. And also, as I was telling you before, I think. Think like when you do 12 steps, you have to interrogate yourself. You have to honestly say to someone, this is what I've done. This is what I've not done. I've done these things. You have to tell them because then they go, okay, well, you know, you've got to make amends. And the fact is that I owe an amends to women for sure, in a sort of a general way and in a specific way. And may God grant me the opportunity to make those amends. And I guess, look, if we've got faith in God, the faith in God has got to be if it's not faith in God that I'm gonna get what I want. It's faith in God that he knows what I want and he. He knows what's best for me. Forget what I want. What I want is not even a factor anymore, sadly, because what I want, you know, like, listen, I tried to get what I want. What I wanted was, I want to be really, really famous. I want to marry pop stars, be around really glamorous and beautiful women, sleep with them. And then one's not enough. I'll have two. I'll have 20. I'll have 500. You know, like, that's what I thought. When I'll do drugs, I'll do drugs all the time. Then that I. What I want is not a metric trick. But I'm right.
- [138:09]
Megyn Kelly
We've learned this.
- [138:11]
Russell Brand
But then the problem is, is that we live in an idiot giddy donkey island. You know, we're all living on Pinocchio. Donkey island of Pinocchio. No, like. Like, everyone thinks smoking cigars and like, everyone's selling these ideas to one another to a lesser or greater degree. If you are this type of person, pursue this false idol. If you're this type of person, pursue this full cider. I really, really do not want to go to jail. But look at what happened to Julian Assange. That dude. They never even give him a try. Well, they stuck him for five years. He was in that embassy. I went and saw him there, and I go, look at your bedroom. He goes, oh, come on, Let me have some privacy.
- [138:42]
Megyn Kelly
And you were not even the most famous person who went to visit him. Pamela Anderson was visiting him.
- [138:46]
Russell Brand
How? Yes, how did that pan.
- [138:48]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, imagine being Julian Assange and Pamela Anderson walks into your.
- [138:54]
Russell Brand
Wait a minute.
- [138:55]
Megyn Kelly
I love my prison.
- [138:56]
Russell Brand
I'll WikiLeak that. And like, when I was. And when I was. You can leave your file anonymously. I mean, like, when I. When I. When I visited him. Yeah. God, he's a hero, that dude. And I'm friends with his wife Stella. And while he was away, you know, he would send me messages. Once it all kicked off with me, he goes. Because that's what happened to Julian Assange, first of all, is they accused him of rape two women.
- [139:15]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember.
- [139:16]
Russell Brand
And then, like, like, well, I. Yeah, I went and visited him that time. I like that dude. But he did after. He's a real hero. He's a genuine hero. So is Edward Snowden. The hero means you're willing to sacrifice everything for what you believe in. That's a hard Line, man. He then did five years in Belmarsh. Belmarsh is no joke of a jail. That's a cat, a prison. That's the most severe prison. I think he did a lot of it in solitary, never had a trial. And really what his crime was is he told the truth about corrupt in this case, I have to say, American power. He exposed, like, Hillary Clinton to an enormous degree. So the people that were disposed to supporting that dude, all of the Democrat left, they went, we don't care. And all the warhawk Republican types, they're like, we don't care either. Ten years, the CIA were going to kill him, weren't they? So, yeah, yeah, you're right. I mean, justice and truth, these are ideas that presume God in my country, the United Kingdom, it's gone a little bit godless. Like, you can get an abortion now. I think even on the child's third birthday, you can still, like, no, I've gone off it. No, it's annoying. Get it out of here. And like, you can be you for now. Like. Like, if you. I think you could be euthanized if you're annoying.
- [140:25]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [140:26]
Russell Brand
Like, no, you're out. And like, this is Britain. A lot of people are annoying. Look at the. Just consider the teeth.
- [140:30]
Megyn Kelly
That's probably why Harry and Meghan left.
- [140:33]
Russell Brand
Not bad.
- [140:34]
Megyn Kelly
Thank you. Thank you. Well, listen, I hope I'm wrong. I hope.
- [140:38]
Russell Brand
Well, I'm not predicting.
- [140:40]
Megyn Kelly
I'm not predicting a guilty predict it. I'm just. I'm worried as I. I'm looking at the cross on the COVID of the book, and I'm thinking, well, how does this. Where does this journey go now next? And I really hope, you know. And I'm also thinking about something Erica Kirk said at Charlie's funeral, how Charlie said, use me, you know, use me, Lord. And she was saying, those are powerful words. Oh, you know, like, I hope you don't get used in the way. We don't want to see you get used. But as you point out, if that's God's will, then it then. So it must be. And he knows better than we do. And there must be something for you there. There must be something. Some work for you there, man.
- [141:13]
Russell Brand
Someone said, like, why did he come become when he came the Lord, when did he. Why did he choose that moment out of all eternity? Like, was it because of these political conditions with the Romans? Was it because of the Pharisaic class? Why was it he chose then? Yeah, and someone said, I think it was Father Mike Schmidt's actually, The Catholic future. But yeah, he's fantastic. And he said, oh, it was just for the thief on the next cross. That's the only time he could have got that guy. Ah, that's right.
- [141:39]
Megyn Kelly
That's probably spot eye. Listen, God bless you. Good luck to you.
- [141:45]
Russell Brand
Thanks.
- [141:45]
Megyn Kelly
We'll be following very closely.
- [141:47]
Russell Brand
God is great.
- [141:48]
Megyn Kelly
And honestly, like, I'm so glad we have this conversation.
- [141:50]
Russell Brand
Yeah, me too. I really enjoyed it.
- [141:51]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, it was very cathartic for me. I, for all the reasons stated, I got to the place where I didn't want to talk to you and then I really did want to talk to you. And now I have talked to you and I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity and I've gotten to know you better.
- [142:05]
Russell Brand
Thank you. Are you available for jury service in. In October and then Night King don't have to be a resident.
- [142:09]
Megyn Kelly
Yes, we'll swing by.
- [142:10]
Russell Brand
Thank you.
- [142:11]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I know Tucker's going. He and I will go. We'll make a day of it.
- [142:13]
Russell Brand
Yeah, I'm gonna go out with you two.
- [142:16]
Megyn Kelly
Nobody's gonna have a glass of wine with me. Abby, come with me. All the best to you. Good luck. Buy the book Russell Brand how to Become a Christian in seven days may take 50 years to sin In Serious fuck ups to get started. All right, we will be back tomorrow with some of our MK troops, crime favorites. And also do you do an old.
- [142:35]
Russell Brand
We usually do something called MK Ultra. Do you do that?
- [142:38]
Megyn Kelly
MK Ultra, that's.
- [142:39]
Russell Brand
That's your elite. That should be paywall.
- [142:40]
Megyn Kelly
That's my secret special. Yeah, exactly. Behind the payroll offering. Tonight is the California gubernatorial debate, isn't it? Yes, tonight is the debate with Steve Hilton and Katie fucking Porter. Can't wait. So we'll have that for you tomorrow as well. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening to the the Megyn Kelly Show. No bs, no agenda and no fear.