Russell Brand, the British actor and comedian who’s recently been hit with a quartet of sexual assault allegations, has a new accuser who claims he exposed his penis on the set of Arthur in 2010 before sexually assaulting her in a bathroom.
The allegation surfaced Friday in a motion obtained by The Daily Beast, in which the unidentified woman asked a New York judge for anonymity in an impending lawsuit set to be filed under the Adult Survivor’s Act.
The woman alleges the assault occurred on July 7, 2010. Brand, who starred as Arthur’s titular character at the peak of his Hollywood stardom, exposed his penis to her on set “in full view of the cast and crew,” the motion says, adding that Brand appeared drunk, and was carrying around a bottle of vodka.
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Later that day, the woman claims Brand followed her into a bathroom and sexually assaulted her while some of the film’s production crew “guarded the door from outside.” She did not detail the alleged assault further.
A legal representative for Brand and Warner Bros. Pictures, which produced Arthur, did not return a request for comment from The Daily Beast on Friday.
While the woman’s name is withheld, the Oct. 7 filing identifies her as an actor who still works in the industry. She asked for anonymity out of fear she’d be blacklisted from acting opportunities, harassed by Brand’s fans, and to avoid general embarrassment and shame, the motion said.
The accuser claims that she was not brought back to the set of Arthur after the alleged assault, despite initially being booked to work three days. She says she was only paid for one day of work.
Brand was initially accused of sexual assault by four women in a September joint investigation conducted by British publications the Times and Sunday Times, and the TV network Channel 4. The alleged assaults occurred between 2006 and 2013.
One of the accusers claimed Brand raped her without a condom against a wall in his Los Angeles home. Another woman, also in L.A., said Brand assaulted her when she worked with him. When she confronted him, she said he “flipped” and became “super angry.”
Brand’s other two accusers said they were assaulted in the United Kingdom. One said she was only 16 when she had sexual contact with Brand, who she says “engaged in the behaviors of a groomer.” The other said Brand was physically and emotionally abusive.
As the allegations emerged, the British stand-up comedian London Hughes revealed that people who worked alongside him previously had warned her that the actor, now 48, was known to pursue women he worked with, have sex with them, and then cut off contact.
“He likes to pursue women, have sex with them,” she tweeted last month, “but as soon as he had sex with them, they’d made him feel sick and he didn’t want to be around them anymore, so he would have them fired, or dropped from the agency.”
Brand blasted a video to his social media channels in September, denying ever sexually assaulting anyone. He acknowledged his reputation for being promiscuous, but insisted that all of his relationships had been consensual.
He claimed that the allegations were part of a “coordinated attack” concocted by mainstream media to bring him down.
“The relationships that I had were absolutely always consensual,” Brand said. “I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent. And I’m being transparent about it now… I don’t mind them using my books and my stand-up to talk about my promiscuous consensual conduct in the past. What I seriously refute are these very, very serious criminal allegations.”
