Today on The Editors, Rich and company discuss some celebrity news: namely, Russell Brand.
Maddy has plenty to say on the topic.
“All the things that usually apply in a MeToo witch hunt apply in this case as well. . . . But the difference in this case is that buried underneath all of that are the allegations themselves, which are in fact credible.”
There are two reasons, Maddy says, that the allegations are credible: “First, because the allegers have evidence. . . . And the second reason it’s credible is because of who Brand was at that time by his own very, very public admission. . . . Credible is obviously not the same as proven beyond reasonable doubt, but it’s not hugely surprising to me that somebody who lived his life this way and treated women as playthings and was very open about that . . . might have crossed the line. And I think one of the reasons it’s not a good idea to have the dividing line between what we considered acceptable and what we considered unacceptable be only the law is because sometimes what’s illegal and what’s legal don’t actually look that dissimilar.”
Is she concerned about how this affects Brand? She goes on to say, “I think even if his best possible defense at this point is that he’s not a rapist, he’s just another rich, powerful man who used women as playthings and got away with it for years. So forgive me if I’m not donating to his defense fund and sort of getting worked up about it. I think he’s in a mess of his own making.”
To hear the rest of this conversation, and the other topics discussed on today’s episode, listen below.