Russell Brand’s First Night Behind Bars: Strip Search, ‘Inedible’ Dinner And A Round-The-Clock Watch

Russell Brand was “petrified” during his first night in a UK prison after his rape conviction, according to the Sun. 

The 51-year-old comedian handed over his clothes for what the paper called a “humiliating” strip search, then got gray jogging bottoms, T-shirts, sweatshirts and underwear, a “first-night pack” of toiletries and a food pack of cereal, tea, milk, sugar, juice sticks and digestive biscuits. He was also offered a toilet roll, a bible and a vape pack. His first prison meal was an “inedible” microwave dinner.

Brand was allowed one three-minute call, which the prison had to approve. Before bed, staff carried out a mental health evaluation, checking his “state of mind” and making sure he “was not a danger to himself.” A source told the Sun he is being monitored around the clock by guards and kept away from other inmates, though he “will be relatively safe,” and that he will be moved to another prison after he is sentenced Monday.

A jury at Southwark Crown Court convicted Brand Thursday of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault after a four-week trial, as we reported. He was acquitted of two other rape charges and one charge of attempted indecent assault. Justice Joel Bennathan told him to expect a “significant” prison sentence, denied him bail and sent him off in a police van.

The Metropolitan Police said afterward that Brand is under investigation over two more rape accusations. One of the accusers was allegedly 16 when she dated Brand, who was 30. Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy called Brand a “danger to women.”

Brand was charged last year over alleged incidents between 1999 and 2009. He pleaded not guilty, maintained that the encounters were consensual and, in a 2023 police interview, said he has “led a very promiscuous life in the past” but has “never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity.”