Bible Study With Russell Brand

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1:56hello and welcome to this episode of the rest is entertainment with me marina hyde and me richard osmond hello listeners hello marina hello richard how are you um all right what lovely weather we've been having it's we have it's actually worth discussing it's been so fantastic although if we have listeners around the world perhaps in your territory you haven't had nice weather god i love how global you are you've got to be so careful you have to individualize everything speaking of being careful we yes this week we're gonna have to be very careful we're going to be discussing russell brand's book tour how is it going yeah how's it really going what else are we going to talk about we are going to talk about a british television success story i'm going to talk about channel five they're called five really but if you say five people think you mean the boy band so it gets confusing so i'll call them channel five for now but uh their drama which anyone who watches five will know they've had three or four years of absolute uh banger after banger so we're going to talk about how and why they've managed to achieve that and we're also going to talk about the met gala which this year is sponsored by lauren sanchez and jeff bezos Friends of the podcast.

3:07Friends of the podcast. And we're going to talk about how it, in my view, represents a complete defeat for every single thing Anna Wintour, the legendary editor of Vogue, ever stood for. Talking about complete defeats of everything we've ever stood for, shall we talk about Russell Brand's book? Russell Brand has a new book out, which is called How to Become a Christian in Seven Days. The answer's not what you think it is. the subtitle is may take 50 years of sin and fuck ups to get started language please language indeed that's actually on the cover but with an asterisk we should say before we go on that Russell Brand in the UK has been charged and faces trial in October on charges of rape and sexual assault made against him by six women, he denies all of those charges we can't talk about that but we can talk about the book tour he is currently on We can talk about the things that he's been talking about.

4:05Yeah, and the journey that slightly got us here, because Russell Brown would like us to think that he has been on a journey, firstly, of faith. Inevitably, he was once a Buddhist. Then I think he sort of moved. There was a point relatively recently where he was endorsing a Roman Catholic prayer app. Was he? Called Hallo. The other journey I suppose he's been on is from being what I would describe, I guess as a sort of standard vibes-based lefty towards being a sort of MAGA faithful person in America. He now lives in America. Still vibes-based. Still vibes-based, yeah. You'll remember that back in 2015, he was regarded as some sort of electoral prophet in some way, as though he had some kind of swing vote.

4:53He'd be on Newsnight, Ed Miliband would talk to him. Ed Miliband went to his flat in the 2015, during the 2015 election campaign to be interviewed. He had a sort of news show at the time that was called The Trues, a bit like the news, but not. Oh, that's quite nice. Yes. I remember him saying, one of the questions he said to, sorry, this is a bit of a sidebar, but it was just so unbelievably moronic that I have to remind everyone what this electoral profit was. He said, since suffrage, since the right to vote, I mean, what actually has meaningfully occurred? Wow. thereby forcing Ed Miliband, who at that stage, I mean, so many people thought was going to win.

5:29And for me, this was the deal was sealed. When you're having to explain the creation of, I don't know, the NHS, workers' rights, women's rights, gay rights, anyway. But he was sort of designated at that point the kind of community leader of people who were disinterested in politics, but might, with the right prophet, be kind of pushed forward and vote. And I haven't followed the story. Was he the right prophet? I have to say, no, there was a constituency of people who didn't particularly vote and were not particularly interested in the cut and thrust of daily two-party politics. And a lot of those people did come out in 2016, the next year, and they did cast a vote in the Brexit referendum.

6:09So, no, he wasn't. He didn't make the blindest bit of difference whatsoever to that election result. I mean, to his bank balance. To his bank balance, yes, I'm sure. and he developed a career of lots of live shows and various books and there was a sort of move into self-help as well, I would say. Anyway, I think the keystone really of this book tour so far has been the appearance on Piers Morgan's YouTube show. Oh my God, if you've not seen it, it is absolutely mind-blowing. Spellbinding. Please describe. And mind-blowing. That's two things you can have on the front cover of the book. Piers Morgan is talking to Russell Brand about taking a Bible into the courtroom and talking about various...

6:57When he was charged. When he was charged, yeah, on his first appearance, and talking about various Bible verses that helped him through that terrible ordeal. And Russell Brand says, oh, yes, and there's a wonderful verse from Isaiah that was very helpful to me. So Piers Morgan goes, oh, well, by all means, read it out. There is then, I think it's almost two and a half minutes of Russell Brand looking through his Bible, the very Bible that he took into court, trying to find this verse from Isaiah. Oh, it's not that one. No, it's not. Oh, but that's a good one. Oh, in the gallery, they'll be, oh, I bet they're enjoying this.

7:39and Piers Morgan, Piers should have learned from this a very long time ago, just kept completely quiet for the entire two minutes. It seems like personal growth is possible. It was the best bit of TV Piers has ever done. But it was a very smart bit of presenting. So he was just sort of looking at the camera as Russell Brand is just, he's leafing through this. Okay, can I just say it's already meme of the year? Just call off the search. There's nothing, it is the most memeable thing that you can possibly have done. This clip is, I think it's absolutely extraordinary what's interesting to me I mean there's so many things about it that are interesting to me but as I don't know I don't want to say an actor because I mean I've seen the films but as a person who is a comedian what the hell happened to his sense of you think they I mean obviously one of the biggest things comedians know about is timing and whatever and to not be aware of what is happening and not to just simply say I can't find it now anyway the point is yeah how what's happened and to have something else on the top of your head that you say easy done but what has happened there it seems to me the most complete sort of collapse of all the sensibilities that made you successful and charismatic in the first place to not understand that it was genuinely like 90 seconds or something it's it's so unbelievably painful and to not know how that would but again he's from the world now where you know he's constantly making his own videos and constantly sort of making his own statements and lives in a world where you know the media is a very different thing than it used to be so i i guess he's just sort of appearing on a show like that too as well in fairness so you'd think that but it just it's so off well the whole thing about being a comedian and being an intellectual and stuff we we will again we will talk about this properly when we can when when you know uh whatever gloves we currently have on either stay on or come off but we we can have a proper chat i would argue he was never really a comedian I mean there is a group of people who I mean I didn't like it who's really a TV presenter yes who yeah but but even yeah that's timing to have just completely forgotten everything you ever knew so it's interesting in terms of how I know this is this podcast slightly becoming the rest is shame listeners in the old days I do think that just that clip would be enough to do for you but the point about all of this now is that if you decline I mean John Ronson who wrote that book So You Think You've Been Publicly Shamed, which is such a good book and caught such a mood at the absolute, you know, maybe not the absolute apex of people cancelling people, but definitely in the kind of in the heyday of it all.

10:14I'd love him to go back now and talk about what the lack of shame is doing to the culture, because the elimination in it of people have just decided not to care, not to be shamed. Russell Brand will simply decide not to be shamed by the absolute preposterous hilarity of that clip. And has already been posting lots more and will just carry on. And it will sort of be fine. So his new book is published by Skyhorse, but by a particular imprint of Skyhorse. Yes, Tucker Carlson Press. Tucker Carlson, he was one of the very first trumpeters of MAGA. He's now gone slightly anti-MAGA, but not in a fun direction.

10:55And he has set up his own press to publish. He used to be a Fox News anchor, and he no longer is his own one-man ban now. Yeah, and is he going to run for president? All of this. Yeah, he has Tucker Carlson Press, which he says is to publish books that nobody else will publish. And listen, it feels like there's a lot of those around. But really, he means controversial books by people awaiting trial. Yeah, that genre. Skyhorse have done quite a few of those as well. Skyhorse are amazing. Yeah, Skyhorse. By the way, that's a sort of parent publishing. And Simon and Schuster, I think, distribute their stuff.

11:32So they're not one of those people that you have to do direct-to-consumer marketing. They do actually have a bit more of a presence and a bit more of a chance to get things out there. They did the Biden crime family, which is the blueprint for their prosecution. That was written by Rudy Giuliani. He wrote that book. They wrote the Pfizer papers, Pfizer's Crimes Against Humanity. Both of those books, by the way, had forwards by the same person. Do you know who that might be? It's not Giles Brandreth. Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon. I was going to say RFK. They've published one of his books. Oh, yeah.

12:05And do you know who the forward of RFK's book was written by? Who? Steve Bannon. There's like 10 books that Steve Bannon has done the forward for. Stephen K. Bannon. Is there an official forwarder job? Just I do forwards. I guess so. Yeah. I don't know if it's the same forward. But to be fair to Sky Horse's world, it's not all that. They also do the unofficial joke book for fans of Harry Potter. There's four of those. Wow. Can I give you the subtitle to that? There's written a talk about sitting around a table with lawyers. The unofficial joke book for fans of Harry Potter. on the cover it says this book is not authorised or sponsored by Bloomsbury Publishing Scholastic Limited Warner Brothers J.K.

12:41Rowling or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Harry Potter name trademark or copyrights all on the front cover now you've only got to do another 36 ,960 words they also do the large print Bible word search which actually that sounds like quite a good book they did Woody Allen's memoir Melania's memoir RFK's attack on Anthony Fauci remember their chief medical officer they've done yeah so it's a vibe they've done so many books on the JFK assassination including one which I love written by Jesse Ventura do you remember Jesse Ventura the former wrestler who actually became I think was he governor of Minnesota I think he might have become governor of Minnesota he suddenly ran as governor of Minnesota they did an amazing book called I Went to Prison So You Won't Have To by Peter Navarro the lawyer there's so many jokes I want to make right now but I can't.

13:33Peter Navarro, the lawyer, by the way, wrote a previous book where he kept citing a legal expert called Ron Vara and experts couldn't find any records of a Ron Vara. And then they realized that Ron Vara was an anagram of Peter Navarro's surname. And so he, yeah. Wow. Anyway, he went to prison, so we don't have to. I don't know if Russell Brand read it. Did he go to prison for writing a bad book or was it something, you know? I think he went to prison for some legal shenanigans. I wouldn't want to go into the detail. We're treading on such thin ice throughout this piece anyway. I don't want to not be sued by Russell Brand, but then we are sued by Peter Navarro.

14:12Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's always the bit you're not expecting, I have to say, in my experience of legal actions. Make sure you look left and right. Russell Brand's book. Yes. It's described by Tucker Carlson Publishing as a testimony and guide to a timeless, yet zeitgeist capturing grounded yet psychedelic encounter with christ go through that again um well i can't because there's so much more of this synopsis and i think you're gonna love it oh amazing as much as the world is in cultural and political collapse unless you've been living in a billionaire bunker on epstein island yeah you know we are an extraordinary revival with his customary almost shocking frankness brand describes his apostasy from demonic hollywood by the way i think Hollywood may be cut ties with him, but...

14:55His apostasy from demonic Hollywood. And radical conversion to Christianity against a backdrop of false allegations, his son's heart surgery, and truly jaw-dropping spiritual warfare. If you are beginning to awaken to the profound changes that are sweeping our planet and want an eyewitness account from the front line, described in gentle yet visceral prose, not possible, read this book now. Wow. So that was, I mean, he always did kind of for Brussels brand, like he swallowed a dictionary and the pages had got in a muddle. It wasn't sitting well. Yeah. Listen, there's so many things we can't say.

15:31After his trial, which I think is set for October, we'll do a proper chat. Oh yeah. Well, we'll be covering that. I'm sure. Yes, absolutely. But we should say he now loves Jesus. Yes. Donald Trump, Andrew Tate. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that he was actually baptised. the story of the baptism is I think quite interesting because that was not even two years ago but it was before he was charged and I want to hear so much more from Bear Grylls because Bear Grylls baptized or helped to baptize Russell Brand in the Thames in a stretch of the Thames so Thames water no longer responsible for the biggest piece of shit in that river and he was assisted by By the way, perhaps that's where this book has come from.

16:18Perhaps he came out of that river. Suddenly, he's got something in his system. Impaginated form. And he posted a picture of the baptism, Russell Brand, saying, it's me, Bear Grylls, the River Thames, and of course, the Holy Spirit. But there were actually three guys in the picture. So one's obviously Bear Grylls, hugging each other, waist high in the waters of the Thames. I mean, don't try it at home. But the other guy had a big sort of one of those Japanese Hanya mask tattoos right all over his back. So I don't think that was the Holy Spirit. As far as I understand it, I don't think it was. I mean, have you seen the Holy Spirit?

16:53No, I haven't. Big news if you have. If I believe Russell Brand's caption, maybe that was the Holy Spirit. I just didn't imagine him to have a back tattoo, I guess. Have you been given a reason to disbelieve anything Russell Brand says? I'm not going to comment on that, Richard. What I'm going to say is what Bear Grylls said about it when he was called on it, because he was the chief scout at the time, which is interesting for the Scout Association. Faith and spiritual moments in our lives are really personal, but it's a privilege to stand beside anyone when they express a humble need for forgiveness and strength from above.

17:22Friendships, when we go through tough times, are worth so much. It's true. Again, I want to hear so much more from Bear Grylls about how things have developed. Perhaps we'll see him in the public gallery come October. Anyhow. He sort of did his own re-write of the Bible, didn't he, before Christmas Bear Grylls, which people rather liked. So Vance, what a Vance move. But it must be... I don't think the Pope should talk about Matthew. He'd be very careful when he's talking about theology. And yeah, rewriting the Bible. It must be very, very hard to be a Christian at the moment, to be an actual Christian at the moment, to be guided through your life by your faith.

17:56Yeah. Because, of course, what you want is as many people converting as possible. And of course, what you want is high profile people converting. I don't know whether when they look around and see some of the people who talk about Christianity at the moment, whether they consider them to be true believers or whether they think they're using their faith. It must be a very conflicting time. There always used to be that line, and I don't know whose it is, but it's such a good one. They used to say the American Christian right, who tend to be neither. I thought that was such a good way of putting it.

18:26But anyway, Russell Brandt is to some extent, he's gone to live in America and he's sort of joined. He's appeared at the conservative conferences. He's got a live stream thing that he does. Now, his appearance on Megyn Kelly, another Fox News host who's carved out on her own and has got her own sort of podcast empire. On his Megyn Kelly appearance, he said that he had had sex with a 16 year old when he was 30 and he called it exploitative. He said he was an exploiter of women. His behavior was awful, but lawful. Again, that's about as much as we can say on that with a court case pending. But I suppose we should look at where his money comes from.

19:07He's got lots of future plans. If the court case goes his way in October, he says he's going to run for London mayor. But he has sold lots of books in the past. My bookie work was a big seller. Yeah. He had to pay Pam McMillan back, didn't he, for two books. Self-help books, as I understand it. Which he didn't deliver at all. Didn't even deliver a word, supposedly. I mean, it's amazing they went through it because as I was telling you, I'd spoken to some people in publishing not that long ago who said that they had never requested a returned advance if the book hadn't been handed in. And I was like, I'm so sorry, what?

19:40So people have taken an advance, not written the book. They're years, years behind. And it's OK if it's like someone absolutely amazing, one of the greats of the 20th century. And you just think, well, just maybe I'll turn it in and then I'll still have it. but I was amazed by how many had not been requested back. I thought that was a really fascinating thing. Well, because no one wants to have the conversation. Wow. Okay. Well, Pam McMillan were willing to have it. In fact, they wanted to have the conversation, I think, by the High Court because they legally have sued for the return of, I think he got half of the advance.

20:14He got half of the overall payment and then he would have got the rest on delivery. So I suppose the economics of his world are, he appears at conservative conferences, which is lucrative. lucrative yeah very very lucrative it's like yeah like being uh you know being on the after dinner circuit after you've been a prime minister or something like that you get a lot of money for those sorts of things it's like being a former professional golfer yeah but yeah it's not quite prime minister your audience is very rich um he does a daily live stream on rumble um yeah i know um and and obviously lots of that ends up on youtube and he did have ad revenue from youtube but they brought this in.

20:50If there are lots of allegations against you and by the time he was charged, I think they restricted monetization so you don't, including ad revenue, so you get less. I think paid subscriptions are probably his main source of income. And the situation here is that actually you'd be shocked how much people draw in from these things. That's why he's gone to America because it's just a bigger pool. I mean, the money is crazy. And people will pay a lot of money to own the libs. This whole thing, you know, all starts with four letters, which is woke and everyone's on one side or other of that mirror and if you're on the other side of that mirror if you are anti-woke then you will pay a huge amount of money to anybody who does anything if they'll come over onto your side i think it's very expensive to be anti-woke as a consumer yeah because it people pay him 50 a year for if for the witterings on rumble but it's estimated he's got something like 120 ,000 subscribers that's 400 or 500 ,000 dollars a month just for that yeah just for that so um i i can't i can't tell you that he is struggling desperately and then much more shadowy i think even than that are the endorsements and affiliate deals that you do um around that sort of content so and live events as i say there it's mainly turning up at these conferences, but it's very lucrative and that's why he's gone there.

22:18Yeah. Another interesting development this week, again, lots of things we can't talk about, but we can talk about things that are in the public realm. Catherine Ryan, who appeared on Roast Battle with Russell Brand, has said it got to the point on that show. She said, I only did the show really, so I felt I could say interesting things. She said it got to a point where she was told not to do any more jokes that Russell was the butt of and that he had complained and that she was asked, said, no, no, no. I mean, it's a celebrity roast battle. But it got to the point where she was not allowed to do jokes about him.

22:59Can I sort of round up, I guess, by asking your opinion? We've talked about the economics of his world and how he gets his money. But this book tour is, I suppose, why we're even talking about this. Will this sell books? the Piers Morgan interview was I think two hours or something long really really long like they all are but all anyone experiences them as are clips that do or don't go viral and obviously this one's gone incredibly viral will it sell books? Yeah in America it will here it went but it's like saying look if Manchester City bring out a sippy cup for babies which seems absurd will that sell?

23:36and of course it will because it's got Manchester City stamped on it so Manchester City fans will buy it and fans of, not necessarily fans of Russell Brand, but fans of spending your money on false profits. Right. Wow, that's a huge fan base, Richard. That is an enormous fan base. That's bigger than the Swifties. That is bigger than the Swifties. So yeah, I suspect he'll sell some copies of this book. I've seen quotes about it. I've seen a couple of reviews on it, some in the Christian press, which are very entertaining. I wanted to actually buy it because I wanted to read it, but it's not out until later in May here.

24:10Yeah. I mean, it's unreadable. Right. But of course it's unreadable. Talking about him as a pro stylist and a comedian, yeah, he was always dreadful. Yeah, he promised something that he wasn't. But, you know, like with the Matthew Goodwin book we talked about, it's not just about the book itself anyway. It's about staying current and have something to talk about and being able to go on Megyn Kelly and Peter's Morgan. That's the thing that that book is buying him and, you know, driving more subscribers to his channel. So in a way, even if he didn't sell books, it would be a lost leader. But he'll sell a few, I think.

24:43But as you say, it's dwarfed by the amount of money that he makes in subscriptions. Which we have to say, if you have the shamelessness attribute, you can just carry on making the money. That is the most lucrative DNA glitch you can have is the shamelessness DNA. You're a choreo. I'd be surprised if there weren't parents in America now doing genetic screening to say, what's the exact thing that we need there that our kid never, ever worries about anything anyone says about him? I'm incredibly interested in achieving that. But yes, it is the genuine superpower. I think we got away with that. Yeah, that's that anti-hero taken care of.

25:24Join us after the break where we can discuss Lauren Sanchez. Yeah, we're also going to talk about a genuine hero who we're going to be doing a Q &A with and we'll be looking for your questions for that genuine hero as well. We'll let you know who that is after these ads.

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26:05Welcome back, everybody. Now, lovely palate cleanser. Who are we talking to on a Q &A episode soon? I can't believe this is actually happening. We are talking to Paul McCartney. The guy from The Beatles? Yeah, he was in The Beatles, yeah. Oh, the guy from Get Back? Yeah, yeah. I love that show. Yeah, we are talking to the legend, Paul McCartney. But we will not be putting our questions to him. we'll be putting your questions to him. So any questions you have for Paul McCartney, I imagine you could think of a few. If you send those to the rest of his entertainment at goalhanger.com, put Paul McCartney in the subject line.

26:39In all caps. All in caps. Oh my God, it's Paul McCartney as your subject. And yeah, any questions you've ever wanted to ask Paul McCartney and we'll put your questions to him. That'd be fun, won't it? Oh my gosh. I will. Yeah. I mean, I won't be speechless, obviously. That would be bad. People at walks. I mean, that's a guy who never had to get baptised in a river. I'll just say that about the dude. you know back in the good old days where you know our cultural icons were actual cultural icons don't cross those two very very different streams Richard it's actually a river yeah tell me about channel 5 drama Richard yes channel 5 I like you know I try and beat the drum as much as I can for British television and for you know good old-fashioned British terrestrial television as well only because that's where I kind of grew up and you know it gets a terrible press because all we talk about is streamers and the way that new media is going and there are still huge success stories in terrestrial television you know we've seen plenty of them bbc itv channel 4 but five have very quietly put together a quite extraordinary stable of dramas yeah i would say and they've done it because the middle of the drama industry on terrestrial television has really been hollowed out if you're bbc or itv they're still doing brilliant dramas but they're doing fewer of them they tend to be bigger and there was there's a whole range of shows that have stopped getting made you could sort of symbolize them by thinking when somebody leaves a british soap opera where do they go and it used to be they would go to a lovely bbc drama or an itv drama and you know that market has gone and also they've been channel five and back to five and channel five and back to five yeah a lot of times we know what we're talking about yeah it's the fifth button is it to people still use the fifth button i don't know anyway no um so the easiest drama strategy for five would be not to do drama at all that would be that's the alternate reality here that is 10 years ago they go we know how much money we've got we know how much money drama costs because it is very expensive very very expensive yeah exactly and we know the return on that investment is is often not amazing so we are not going to do drama at all that would have been nine times out of ten that that would be the thing that they would have done but i remember Many years ago, Ben Frow, who we've talked about on this show before, he was very good at spotting the zeitgeist at Channel 4.

28:55He's their chief content officer. He was their chief content officer. He said we're going to do drama. And now the whole thing is run by a guy called Seb Cardwell. And it's something we could have talked about for a long time. But when I was watching the Hugh Edwards drama, the Martin Kloon thing, which is classic five, which is a big zeitgeisty idea with a big British TV star in the middle of it, they were able to advertise in the breaks and that all of the stuff they've done for the last four or five years. And when you saw it all together, you think, blimey. It's unbelievable. It is really, really unbelievable.

29:26Now, what they do, they make drama very, very, very cheaply. They have a number of companies, Clapperboard is one of them, Lonesome Pine is another one of them, who have found a way of making shows very, very cheaply. So I spoke to Seb Cardwell this week about how they've done it and where this industry is going, and also something the British government could do to help them. So I'll just go through some of the amazing shows they've done. They had The Game, that's Robson Green, Jason Watkins. Jason Watkins is one of the big superstars on Five, as is Jill Harpeney, who's in The Feud. That's Jill Harpeney, Rupert Penry-Jones, Larry Lamb, Jamie, Leo Donnell.