The popular prayer app Hallow has announced that it has cut ties with Russell Brand following the British actor and comedian being charged with rape and other sexual offences.
Russell Brand, who promoted the prayer app and interviewed Bishop Robert Barron, has been charged with two counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault, the UK Metropolitan Police Service announced on 4 April.
“We are no longer advertising on Russell’s show,” Alex Jones, CEO and cofounder of Hallow, <a href="https://www.osvnews.com/russell-brand-christian-convert-and-promoter-of-hallow-charged-with-rape/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">told</mark></a> <em>OSV News </em>in a 7 April statement.
The charges, which relate to four separate women, stem from alleged incidents in 1999, 2001 and between 2004-2005, according to police. Brand is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on May 2.
The <em>BBC</em> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0457d02e9go"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">reports</mark></a> that Jaswant Narwal of the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that the CPS had "authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge Russell Brand with a number of sexual offences", adding:
"We carefully reviewed the evidence after a police investigation into allegations made following the broadcast of a <em>Channel 4</em> documentary in September 2023.
"We have concluded that Russell Brand should be charged with offences including rape, sexual assault and indecent assault. These relate to reported non-recent offences between 1999 and 2005, involving four women."
Brand has publicly denied the allegations. During the fallout following the allegations, there was further publicity generated by Brand's public announcements on Christianity, while occasionally dropping in <a href="https://thecatholicherald.com/so-grateful-to-be-surrendered-in-christ-russell-brand-baptised-while-making-oblique-catholic-references/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">specific references to Catholicism</mark></a>.
In April 2024, the actor and comedian, known for his promiscuous love life, and use of vulgarity and lewd humour, posted a social media video of his baptism in the River Thames.
After the baptism, he said: “For me, I’ve made the decision – and I know what the decision is. I pray that it will be relevant to my family in particular.
“The truth is this: as a person who has in the past taken many, many substances and always been disappointed with their inability to deliver the kind of tranquillity and peace and even transcendence that I always felt I have been looking for, something occurred in the process of baptism that was incredible.”
Following his baptism, <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-black-color">Brand revealed</mark> that he felt “changed”.
<em>OSV News </em>notes that he went on to praise the Hallow app in a social media video – that was then posted by the company – in which he said he would “thoroughly recommend” the app, and described Hallow personality Father Mike Schmitz as “a good geezer”.
The informal promotion led to an actual advertising partnership that saw Hallow advertising on Brand’s podcast hosted on the Rumble streaming platform.
In July 2024, Brand conducted an interview with Bishop Barron, who leads the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota, and is the founder of the hugely popular and influential Catholic media group Word on Fire.
In November 2024, Jones told Catholic media <em>The Pillar</em> that if charges were filed against Brand, “We would obviously take it very seriously. It would be a really important development.”
Jones cited among the possible considerations the company would have to factor would be, “how (Russell Brand) responds publicly, what he says, and what the facts of the case end up being", along with the ramifications of any potential scandal.
“We obviously want to have a spirit of forgiveness and a spirit of being open to real, authentic conversion and repentance, but at the same time have to be prudential in making sure that no one feels that the Church is continuing to not take abuse seriously,” Jones told <em>The Pillar.</em>
After the charges were announced, Russell Brand posted videos on <em>Instagram</em> thanking fans for their support and denying the charges, <em>OSV</em> <em>News</em> notes.
“I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord,” said Brand. “I was a drug addict, a sex addict and an imbecile. But what I never was, was a rapist. I’ve never engaged in non-consensual activity. I pray that you can see that by looking in my eyes.”
<a href="https://thecatholicherald.com/condemning-russell-brand-will-not-change-the-warped-culture-of-relativism-which-created-him/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><em><strong>RELATED: Condemning Russell Brand will not change the warped culture of relativism which created him</strong></em></mark></a>
<em>Photo: Comedian and actor Russell Brand attends the fourth day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, 18 July 2024. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images.)</em>
