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Russell Brand’s Former Flatmate Urges Victims to Come Forward

Mark Pinheiro, who lived with Russell Brand in London for 16 months from 1999, says he witnessed more offending and will support any woman who comes forward. Brand is serving 10 and a half years for rape and sexual assaults on four women.

By Elena Vance

November 15, 20262 min read

Russell Brand's former flatmate Mark Pinheiro has urged other potential victims to come forward, saying he saw Brand commit further crimes and is willing to back women up. Pinheiro, who lived with the entertainer in London for 16 months from 1999, made the appeal after Brand's convictions.

Pinheiro was the first witness to give evidence at Brand's trial at Southwark crown court. Brand is now serving a sentence of 10 and a half years for one rape and three sexual assaults against four women.

The appeal

"If you're out there and you're listening and you want to come forward, do come forward and I will support you," Pinheiro said. He added that it was not a case of one person's word against another's, because "there was a third party to bear witness."

He said he remembered many incidents. "There's so many incidents that I can remember," he said.

What he says he saw

Pinheiro describes one alleged episode in the new Netflix documentary Russell Brand: Open Secret. He says he heard a girl shouting "Let go of me" and saw her "wrestling herself away" from Brand.

He says he opened his door and saw Brand gripping the woman's arm with both hands, trying to pull her back into his bedroom "like a tug of war". According to Pinheiro, Brand let go when the light came on.

A friendship that faded

Pinheiro met Brand in December 1998, and the two performed together in a cabaret group. Brand moved in at the end of 1999 and stayed until early 2001.

They stayed friends. Pinheiro says he spent several Christmases with Brand and his mother, Barbara. They drifted apart around 2010, when Brand met pop star Katy Perry, and Pinheiro last saw him during the Messiah Complex tour in 2015.

Backstage on that tour, Pinheiro says he saw many women accept invitations to meet Brand, queueing and waiting their turn. He says Brand made no attempt to hide what he was doing and accuses people around him of enabling it.

"They were happy to tolerate it and that's as far back as 10 years ago. I wasn't the only person who saw things," he said.

The sentencing

Judge Mr Justice Joel Bennathan sentenced Brand for attacks on four women. They were a fan he raped at his London home, a woman he groped in a Soho bar, and two employees he assaulted at Choice FM and Channel 4. The attacks took place between 2004 and 2009.

Brand, 51, was cleared of raping a woman in a hotel in Bournemouth in 1999, during the Labour Party conference. He was taken to HMP Wandsworth in a prison van after sentencing. The trial heard that his wife, Laura Gallacher, 39, is standing by him. They have three children aged between three and 10.

Pinheiro told the jury that Brand bragged about being a ladies' man who wanted to bed 5,000 women. He said Brand often slept with up to three women a week in the flat.

"I was kind of disappointed more people didn't come forward," Pinheiro said.