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Russell Brand’s ex who was victim of the ‘Sachsgate’ scandal says comedian ‘needs to tell the truth’
Developed over time first seen 2 hours ago
Georgina Baillie, Russell Brand’s former partner, has urged him to acknowledge his actions and make amends after he was convicted of rape and sexual assault. She said the verdict was difficult to reconcile with the man she remembered, but that the women who reported abuse deserve to be heard.
Baillie and Brand’s relationship became public during the 2008 “Sachsgate” scandal, when Brand and Jonathan Ross left an offensive voicemail for her grandfather, Andrew Sachs. She said Brand later paid for her rehabilitation in 2018, which she believes saved her life, and that she had previously supported his defence. Brand was found guilty of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others, while jurors cleared him of two other rape counts and one attempted indecent assault charge; he denied all charges.
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In short
- Georgina Baillie says Brand should admit his mistakes and make amends.
- She says he funded the rehabilitation that she believes saved her life.
- Brand was convicted of rape and three sexual assaults, and cleared of other counts.
How this story developed
- 25 minutes ago Georgina Baillie, Russell Brand’s former partner, has urged him to acknowledge his actions and make amends after he was convicted of rape and sexual assault.
Full account
Georgina Baillie, whose private life became the subject of the 2008 ‘Sachsgate’ scandal, has urged her former partner Russell Brand to tell the truth and make amends after his conviction for rape and sexual assault. Speaking to 5 News, she said she had struggled to reconcile the verdict with the man she knew and now accepted that her judgement of him could have been wrong. Brand, 51, denied all seven charges at his trial at Southwark Crown Court. The jury found him guilty of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others, and acquitted him of two further rape charges and one charge of attempted indecent assault.
Baillie’s response is shaped by a complicated history with Brand. Their relationship became public when Brand and Jonathan Ross left sexually explicit messages about her on the answering machine of her grandfather, the actor Andrew Sachs, during a BBC Radio 2 programme. The broadcast caused widespread criticism and came to be known as Sachsgate. Baillie has said Brand later paid for her rehabilitation from addiction in 2018, help she believes saved her life. That experience made it difficult for her to imagine him behaving aggressively towards women. She also agreed to provide a statement for his defence. Following the verdict, however, she said women who report abuse deserve to be heard and called on Brand to acknowledge what he had done.
The trial followed a 2023 investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches, The Times and The Sunday Times that brought allegations against Brand to wider public attention. One of the women he was convicted of raping was a 21-year-old fan whom he met in 2009. The court heard evidence about their contact after a performance and a later encounter at his London home. Brand had stored her telephone number with a ‘T’, which he told the jury stood for ‘tart’, and two asterisks. He gave his own explanation for the marks. The woman described the lasting harm the assault caused her. Her account was among the evidence considered by jurors during the four-week trial.
The two supplied reports place their emphasis in different places. The first concentrates on Baillie’s reaction: her gratitude for Brand’s past help, her earlier trust in him and her call for honesty after the verdict. The second focuses on the fan’s evidence and details of Brand’s behaviour heard in court, using much more graphic and condemnatory language. Taken together, they show the distinction between Baillie’s personal memories of Brand and the crimes for which the jury found him guilty. Her appeal is for him to accept the verdicts and address the harm to the women concerned.
Where outlets differ
From the full account, which is AI-written from the sources:
Source 1 centres Georgina Baillie’s interview and the history of Sachsgate; Source 2 centres the rape victim’s account and evidence from the trial.
Source 1 describes Baillie’s conflicted view in her own terms. Source 2 uses strongly judgemental language and presents Brand’s phone contact entry as an apparent rating, while Brand told the jury the asterisks had a different meaning.
Coverage · 2 sources
Bias meters
From 2 rated sources.