This is the excruciating moment Russell Brand failed to find a Bible passage after Piers Morgan quizzed him over reading it aloud in court – as he admitted he thought about the prospect of going to prison ‘every day’.
Wearing a long crucifix around his neck, the comedian and born-again Christian opened up about his ongoing court case with Morgan on his Uncensored YouTube channel.
Brand faces trial in October for three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women, between 1999 to 2009. He denies all charges.
During their wide-ranging chat, the veteran broadcaster asked Brand why had decided to take a Bible with him to a hearing at Southwark Crown Court in February.
Noticing Brand again had a Bible with him on the show, he asked if it was the same one. ‘Yes, the very one,’ Brand replied.
The Uncensored host then asked: ‘What was your thinking in taking it into court? You were seen looking at some passages… what were the relevant passages for you?’
Brand then confidently opens the Bible, only to find himself stymied at being able to find the exact passage he was looking for.
Flicking pages back and forth, Brand can be heard sighing, tutting and muttering to himself as Morgan simply looks on and awaits the answer.
This is the excruciating moment Russell Brand failed to find a Bible passage after Piers Morgan quizzed him over reading it aloud in court
Brand opened up about his court case with Morgan on his Uncensored YouTube channel
A few times Brand appears to have found the right one, announcing ‘it says here’, only to then shake his head and turn the pages again.
At one point Morgan looks directly into the camera, as 90 seconds of dead air and silence throughout the awkward segment continues.
Eventually Brand resigns himself to not being able to find it and says: ‘The verse I was looking at that day…I can’t actually find the verse that I had that day…but this one is good enough.’
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Russell Brand tells Piers Morgan it wasn’t the ‘morally sound’ thing to do to sleep with 16-year-old girl – as he admits he may go to prison
Elsewhere, Morgan asked Brand if he had thought about the possible reality of going to prison, to which Brand said: ‘Yes… all the time, every day.’
Referring to his faith again he said: ‘I will be with God wherever I am. And of course, I would prefer to be with God with my wife and my kids… I’m not saying that that’s not a difficult image… of course it is.’
Brand added: ‘We are going to find out the truth, and we’re going to deal with the truth… if the truth is I am going to prison, then I am.’
He also admitted that it was ‘not the morally sound thing to do’ to sleep with a 16-year-old girl.
Brand addressed his past admission that he had slept with the teenager when he was 30, a relationship unconnected to current court proceedings, saying in retrospect: ‘No, I should not have been doing that.’
On the details of the story, highlighted in a recent documentary and not part of the legal case, it was reported the pair had dated for three months and the actor would send cars to her school to pick her up.
Brand went on to say the context of his past actions was important, explaining many single, famous men have behaved in a similar way.
He added: ‘It’s not very easy to live a moral life in a culture that really openly rewarded it. Were you still at The Sun when I was being Shagger of the Year? I was literally being given awards for it.’
Russell Brand has admitted it was ‘not the morally sound thing to do’ to sleep with a 16-year-old girl, as he told Piers Morgan he may end up in prison
Joking about winning The Sun’s ‘Shagger of the Year’ title three times, he said: ‘Some of the glory’s faded, amidst the rape allegations, the Shagger of the Year titles do not seem quite as valuable, I’ll have to confess. Some of the shine’s come off.’
The comedian said he now believes ‘the only safe place to have sex is within marriage’ and agreed with backlash in the US following a recent interview where he discussed the relationship.
Pressed on whether the encounter amounted to exploitation, Brand said the key issue was consent, noting the age of consent varies across jurisdictions.
‘In the place where I was… that was a legal thing to be doing, but not a morally sound thing to be doing,’ he said.
