Piers Morgan has been compared to Jim Halpert from The Office after his hilarious look to the camera during an excruciating moment in his interview with Russell Brand over the weekend.
The broadcaster had Brand on his Uncensored YouTube channel where they spoke about his ongoing court case.
Brand, 50, faces trial in October for three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women, between 1999 and 2009. He denies all charges.
During the chat Brand admitted that he thought about the prospect of going to prison ‘every day’, while Morgan, 61, also asked the comedian why he 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 opened the Bible, only to be unable to find the exact passage he was looking for.
Flicking pages back and forth, Brand could be heard sighing, tutting and muttering to himself as Morgan simply looked on and awaited the answer.
Piers Morgan has been compared to Jim from The Office after his hilarious look to the camera during an excruciating moment in his interview with Russell Brand over the weekend
The broadcaster, 61, had the Brand on his Uncensored YouTube channel where they spoke about his ongoing court case
A few times Brand appeared 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 looked directly into the camera, as 90 seconds of dead air continued.
Eventually Brand resigned himself to not being able to find it and said ‘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.’
Morgan has now been compared to Jim from the US version of The Office, as one penned on X: ‘Piers staring at Russell then looking at the camera like Jim from The Office is sending me.’
Jim, played by John Krasinski, was best known for his self-deprecating and ironic sense of humour and would often stare at the camera in funny moments – breaking the fourth wall.
When Brand was searching for a Bible verse that he read during court, Piers stared deadpan at the camera leading to people comparing him to Jim from the US version of The Office
Brand opened up about his court case with Morgan on his Uncensored YouTube channel
On Sunday, Russell took to Twitter to say he had finally found the passage he had been looking for and said: ‘Sorry it took me so long to find it on Piers Morgan. I think it was the pressure of the circumstances’
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Moment Russell Brand fails to find Bible passage he read in court in excruciating 90 second clip – after admitting he fears going to prison
On Sunday, Russell took to Twitter to say he had found the passage, saying he had actually marked it all along.
He wrote: ‘Wait! I’ve found that verse!! The really important thing is that we, you, me all of us are loved. And not because of anything we have accomplished or ever could achieve. But because of who loves us.
Sharing a video of himself wearing a striped robe, he said: ‘I am still looking for that passage from Isiah. Wait for it, wait for it…Do you remember when I was on Piers Morgan.
‘I was looking for it and I thought I should find the exact passage, the exact one I was looking at when I was sat in the dock in the court… maybe you’ve never been in a dock in a court accused of really heavy stuff.
‘You’re in the UK in a crown court, in a glass box and I’m not sure if I found it right there in that moment but this was the verse I was looking at that day.
‘Forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up, do you perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
‘Do you wonder sometimes if what you personally face will align and combine with something universal? Do you not feel like our whole culture needs a new thing to spring up?
‘That our whole culture is a bit like a wasteland. Like I mean, the political scene, both globally and domestically and personally, that this isn’t a great time in the world, is it?
‘Like this is the roaring 20s, but the roaring twenties were between the wars and maybe from a macro perspective or a holy perspective, the world has always been caught in such tension.
He continued: ‘Indeed, that’s exactly what this book and the prophecies of Isiah posit, that it’s not some localised thing.
‘So when you are talking about, has the world been captured and conquered by dark forces and you might see that from a conspiratorial perspective in a post-Epstein world, all of that is iterated theologically, historically and scripturally, even though I find a lot of those words difficult.
‘So the answer is in here. It’s like access to the most divine truth that’s always within you. It’s a kind of coming home.
‘Sorry it took me so long to find it on Piers Morgan. I think it was the pressure of the circumstances. Isiah 43:18. In particular, what I like is: ‘See how it springs up. Ah, something new is happening.’
Elsewhere in the Uncensored interview, 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.’
In a recent documentary highlighting the story, 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.’
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.
