Netflix releases Russell Brand documentary Open Secret four days after his sentencing

Sentence and release

Netflix released Russell Brand: Open Secret on Friday, 13 November, four days after a London court sentenced the comedian to 10 years and six months in prison. The 80-minute documentary, directed by Olivia Isaacs and produced by 72 Films, traces Brand's climb from television presenter and Hollywood actor to convicted sex offender. Brand was found guilty of one rape and three sexual assaults involving four women. The sentence was handed down on Monday, 9 November. Only hours before the film appeared, a British news outlet reported further accusations against Brand from six more women.

How the story was first broken

Public accusations against Brand first surfaced in September 2023, when The Times of London and other British outlets published an investigation that included a woman who said Brand had raped her. Channel 4's Dispatches also brought allegations into the public domain that year. The Sunday Times reporter Rosamund Urwin, the lead on that work, says she began investigating in January 2019 after hearing comedians publicly discuss Brand, some ending their shows with remarks calling him a rapist. Charlotte Wace, another Times reporter on the investigation, recalls reading Brand's books, in which he wrote about his sex addiction and episodes such as spitting on a prostitute's face. The film shows how these journalists' investigations helped lead to the police inquiry and the trial.

Georgina Baillie and the Sachsgate row

Georgina Baillie, a relative of the Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, appears in the film as the woman at the centre of the 2008 Sachsgate row. She says her relationship with Brand, which began after they met in 2006, was consensual and casual. In 2008 Brand and Jonathan Ross left lewd voicemails about her on Sachs's answering machine, and the pair made remarks about her on BBC Radio 2. Brand resigned from the BBC, Ross was suspended, and Ofcom fined the corporation £150,000. Baillie, who was 23 at the time, now 41, recalls the aftermath.

“I really felt like I was the most hated person in Britain," she said.”

Baillie says she was cast as a villain while Ross was back at work after what she describes as a six-week suspension, a figure that differs from the three months The Independent reported. She also wrote a character reference for Brand that was presented to the judge at his hearing on Monday, 9 November, calling him an "unabashed womaniser" who was "always lovely".

Testimony in the film

The documentary includes interviews with the comedians Nish Kumar and Harriet Kemsley, the actor and writer Sarah Solemani, Brand's former flatmate and three former girlfriends. One of the ex-girlfriends speaks on camera about sexual assault and coercive control that she says she suffered. Another woman, who dated Brand for six months in 2007, describes him as controlling and says he made her brush her teeth repeatedly until her gums bled. The film combines this testimony with verbatim re-enactments of key Sunday Times interviews and footage from the 2000s. Brand's lawyers acknowledged the filmmakers' request for comment without answering the specific allegations. Brand has earlier denied non-consensual sexual conduct.