MAGA-coded comedian Russell Brand got candid about his marriage to pop star Katy Perry, confessing that he felt “inadequate” and “lonely” during the relationship.
Brand, 50, made the confessions in an appearance on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Show. The comedian-turned-podcaster told Kelly, “I didn’t handle that marriage very well.”
Brand praised Perry, 41, whom he married in October 2010, but unpacked why the relationship didn’t work, citing his own faults.
“You know what there is about her? She has an innocence. She’s a very beautiful person. She’s also incredibly driven and worked really, really hard. I saw her working really hard,” Brand told Kelly.
“Here’s me taking total responsibility for all the mistakes I made in that marriage,” he continued. “I wanted to grab her like this, kind of, ‘There, got it.’ I felt like I was inadequate and not enough on my own, so I saw this big, glorious thing, even though I knew her as a person, just a normal person. Who’s famous when it comes to shower time, picking your nose, scratching your a--? Everybody breaks down into mundanity and flesh.”
“But she was really, really, really lovely,” he said. “It was my fault. I pushed to get married early because I felt inadequate and insecure, and that I wasn’t enough, and that if I was married to her, I’d somehow be a better person and more important.”
Brand, who has been scandal-ridden for years, said he put Perry under an “unnecessary amount of pressure and strain” by pushing marriage.
“She couldn’t fulfill those obligations. She was pursuing her dream, which she successfully did, of becoming the world’s most famous pop star,” he explained.
“When she was doing that, I was in a crisis of, ‘Hold on a minute, I’m lonely, and this isn’t working.’”
The couple divorced after 14 months, in December 2011.
Kelly also asked Brand about the accusations made about his ex-wife by Australian actor Ruby Rose, 40, who alleged Perry assaulted her in a nightclub. Brand said he feels a “good deal of sympathy with the recent allegations around Katy.”
While Brand praised Perry, he did, however, berate her current beau, Canada’s ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “Look at the category I’m in now. I’m in with Trudeau,” he said. “It’ll be a relief to be in a rape trial.”
Brand is awaiting trial after being accused of multiple charges of rape and sexual assault, and one allegation of indecent assault, with incidents dating between 1999 and 2009. He was charged again in December 2025 and has denied all claims made against him.
His trial, delayed by six months, is now set for October 2026.
A one-time left-wing comic, Brand reinvented himself as a born-again Christian and has become a friend to MAGA.
