UK police charge comedian Russell Brand with rape, sexual assaults

(This April 4 story has been corrected to fix the spelling of 'he' in paragraph 3)

LONDON (Reuters) - British police said they charged actor-comedian Russell Brand on Friday with rape and multiple counts of assault in cases relating to four separate women between 1999 and 2005.

Brand, who was once one of Britain's most high-profile broadcasters and is the former husband of U.S. pop singer Katy Perry, denied the allegations when they first emerged in 2023 and said he had never had non-consensual sex.

After the charges, Brand said on X that while he had been a fool when he was younger, "what I never was was a rapist. I have never engaged in non-consensual activity". He started his message by describing the law being used as "a kind of weapon".

Police said Brand, who lives in Oxfordshire, southern England, was charged with one count of rape, one count of indecent assault, one count of oral rape and two counts of sexual assault.

Brand is due to appear in court for a first hearing on May 2, police said.

In the 2000s, he was a regular on British screens, known for his flamboyant style and appearance. He worked for the BBC and starred in a number of films including "Get Him to the Greek" before marrying Perry in 2010. They divorced 14 months later.

By the early 2020s he had faded from mainstream culture, appearing primarily on his internet channel where he airs his views on U.S. politics and free speech.

In September 2023, he returned to the headlines when the Sunday Times newspaper and Channel 4 TV's documentary show "Dispatches" reported the rape allegations.

They said four women had accused Brand of sexual assaults, including a rape, between 2006 and 2013. London's Met police opened a sex crimes investigation some weeks later.

Brand said then he "absolutely refuted" the allegations.

"These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies. And as I've written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous," he said.

"Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual."

The police said their investigation was still open.

"Detectives ask anyone who has been affected by this case, or anyone who has any information, to come forward and speak with police," the police statement said.

(Reporting by Michael Holden and Elizabeth Piper, writing by Sarah Young, editing by William James and Andrew Heavens)