Suzanne Harrington: Keep greasing us with your sincerity, Russell

Brand will go on trial in the UK later this year for multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault. Picture: Yui Mok/PA Wire

Why, if you are already up to your neck in rape allegations, would you broadcast how you’d had sex with a teenager when you were twice her age?

Talking to ex-Fox News presenter Megyn Kelly on YouTube, ex-human being Russell Brand said how he’d had “consensual” sex with a 16-year-old when he was 30. He described this as “selfish” and “exploitative”.

He was, he added, “immature” at 30. And also, in case we weren’t sure how the passage of time works, “a lot younger”. Although still almost double the age of the girl.

Brand will go on trial in Britain later this year for multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault. He lives in the US now, where men accused of rape get elected to highest office.

Did Brand speak specifically with Kelly as she appears to have a remarkable tolerance for men who have sex with underage girls? (Or ‘children’, as they are legally known.)

Last November, Kelly suggested paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was not a paedophile because his trafficked victims were young teenagers rather than young children. “There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a five-year-old,” she said. 

She used the porn term “barely legal” to describe the kind of female children Epstein favoured, prompting actor Cynthia Nixon to remind her that 15 was not “barely legal” but “100% illegal”.

This is emphatically not about policing nascent teen sexuality and teen sexual curiosity. Many — although not all — teens are madly keen to fool around, no matter how much we pretend otherwise. The key is with whom. Two similarly-aged teens enjoying each other’s company exists in a different galaxy from a teen and an adult twice their age.

As Brand has slimily highlighted, ‘illegal’ changes to ‘exploitative’ literally overnight — which is why, not that long ago, it was acceptable for tabloids to do creepy countdowns to the legal-sex birthdays of teenage girls. (Although never, ever boys.)

In 1983, Samantha Fox made her semi-nude page three debut on her 16th birthday, with the Sun headline, “Sam, 16, Quits A-Levels for Ooh-Levels.”

Natalie Portman and Britney Spears both turned 18 in 1999. Spears — or rather, the adults controlling her — leaned into this overnight now-she’s-legal moment with an infamous Rolling Stone cover which merged the aesthetics of a kid’s bedroom with an adult boudoir. Lingerie, sultry make-up, a cuddly Teletubby, the accompanying text reading like ChatGPT erotica.

Portman has spoken of the “environment of sexual terrorism” when, aged 13, she appeared in the movie Leon. And how “a countdown was started on my local radio show to my 18th birthday — euphemistically the date that I would be legal to sleep with”.

In 2004, Rolling Stone was at it again. “Hot, Ready and Legal!” it salivated, an image of 18-year-old Lindsay Lohan on its cover. And in 2013, TMZ captioned a photo of 17-year-old Kendall Jenner with the words “53 Days until she turns 18. Not that we’re counting”. Except they were. The following day, Hollywood Life used the same image: “To all those wondering, Kendall Jenner turns 18 in 52 days.”

In 2015, Kylie Jenner was reportedly offered $10m to do porn when she turned 18. The Jenner sisters, in the public domain since childhood, were deemed fair game.

But hey, Russell and Megyn, 15 is not five, right? And 16 is legal, right? So everything’s cool, right? Keep greasing us with your sincerity, Russell, and keep waving that bible around. We’re all totally convinced.