Archives for March 2024

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Monteal Bell, an energetic, 46-year-old man, travels from his New Brighton home to a busy Rosebank intersection. He is well known to the community for helping commuters cross St. Mary’s Avenue and Tompkins Avenue. His motions are a cross between dancing and traffic directing, which moves people along during the morning rush hour. Bell is hard of hearing, but has no problem communicating with motorists just after sunrise every morning. When asked why he does this, he wrote: ” I just want to work every day.” Bell is handed tips here and there from car passengers, and the owner of the corner deli, Palm Grill, offers him free coffee. Mugeb Zeid, owner of the Palm Grill, says Bell is there before he opens at 7 a.m. “Bell is a funny guy and helps the people; everyone in the area knows him and seems to love him,’’ Zeid said. But mostly, he makes people smile. A reader, Chuhyon Corwin, reached out to say: “His presence, more than his traffic-directing efforts, is what compels me to reach out to you. His enthusiasm and resilience, especially on inclement-weather days, brighten my mornings. He doesn’t just guide traffic; he uplifts spirits, embodying the spirit of New York. Having called New York home for over 20 years, he reminds me of the city’s unique charm and the reasons I fell in love with it.” On a recent cold Thursday at 7:05 a.m., Bell was out there as usual, exchanging waves and smiles, setting a positive tone for everyone’s day. More feature stories on SILive Walt Disney World raises ticket prices: Here are the cheapest dates to visit After proper medical treatment, 4 year-old boy leaves Staten Island to be reunited with family in the Middle East New American Legion post named in honor of 2 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients from Staten Island Comedian Zarna Garg: Breaking glass ceilings with hilarity and representation for middle-aged women Local artists gather at Everything Goes Book Cafe’s open mic night

As a self-confessed narcissist, Russell Brand revelled in the attention his more offensive ‘comedy’ and stunts gathered from his often shocked audiences.

But as a disturbing series of allegations about sexual attacks and disgraceful behaviour grow day by day, fans may well be asking if the joke was on them all along.

While Brand strenuously denies any illegality or criminal activity, it is unavoidable  that his more provocative material is being re-examined with fresh eyes – particularly as his endless public and stage-performed boasts of sex and womanising appear to echo some of the more unpleasant claims being made against him.

Here MailOnline looks at his most outlandish appearances and remarks to try and sort fact from fiction.

In 2013 Brand chatted with Richard Herring in his theatre podcast in Leicester Square when the comedian admitted he was a ‘sex narcissist’ 

Brand has spoken in the past about how his ‘sexual endeavours’ caused ‘all the problems’.

Having got clean of drugs after his agent John Noel insisted he went to rehab, his addictive personality turned to sex. 

He said: ‘It’s the scale of my sexual endeavours that causes all the problems. I’m a bloke from Grays with a good job and a terrific haircut who’s been given a Wonka ticket to a lovely sex factory cos of the ol’ fame.’

Whilst travelling across the UK in 2006 as part of his Shame tour he spoke about how ‘now that I can’t do it [drugs] anymore, I like to have it off’. 

‘Sex is a hobby, I like it,’ he said. ‘Do you believe there are people trying to spoil that for me now.’  

The former Big Brother’s Big Mouth host pointed to his father Ron Brand’s influence for super-charging his ‘rapacious’ sex addiction.

He talked about watching porn movies at his father’s house whilst in primary school, and how he lost his virginity aged 17 to a prostitute paid for by Brand Snr while in Hong Kong.

In his 2007 memoir, My Booky Wooky, he wrote about how his father had paid for three prostitutes to come back to their hotel: ‘My dad set about unwrapping his two prostitutes.’

He attempted to impress the remaining one, although he found the ‘bedlam’ from the neighbouring bed unsettling.

Brand is alleged to have asked staff on the Big Brother shows he was hosting to ask female audience members for their numbers. Pictured: Russell Brand hosting Big Brother’s Little Brother in May 2006

He adds that ‘during the rest of that holiday I f****d loads more prostitutes and never wore a condom… it had hardened me… my sexuality had morphed forever from bewildered innocence into something more complex and rapacious.’ 

He talks about watching porn videos at his dad’s house when he was in primary school. He was precociously interested in women’s breasts, and even before he was a teenager would attempt to guess women’s cup sizes.

He says that as a small child he contrived to watch his Auntie Josie, a friend of his mother, washing her ‘glorious breasts’ in the bath – she had reasoned that he was too young to notice. ‘That’s it, I thought. Keep washing, after all I’m only a little boy…. I really was quite manipulative, even at that early age.’

During his Doin’ Life stand-up tour in 2007, Brand said: ‘I can pretend to be nice for a little of time, you know at the beginning of relationships, pretending to be nice’.

He called it the ‘n*bstacle course’. 

He has openly admitted how he has used ’emotional blackmail’ to get what he wants from women. 

‘I was allowed to sleep in her [a girl called Penny’s] bed top to toe,’ he wrote in his memoir. 

Speaking about how helping other people gives his life a kernel of truth, Brand said: ‘I’m narcissistic and I want to f*** people and I love attention. All them things are true. I’ve always wanted that, I love showing off.’

Brand would later make a crass joke about rape as he discussed how it ‘wasn’t the extraordinary I’m trying to protect [about myself], it’s the mundanity’

‘I spun gags and yarns till she let me turn round, I painted verbal pictures and begged until she kissed me, I lied and danced and evoked the spirit of Pan till reluctantly she removed her bra, I used tears and emotional blackmail to secure the immolation of her knickers.’ 

He also grimly recounted how he once broke a sex worker’s phone having ‘paid a lot of money’ for ‘half-hearted’ sex.

‘This girl was a sorry, fair-weather excuse for a prostitute … then the phone rings again, and I, and this is the worst act of misogyny I’ve committed since the spitting debacle, took the phone out of her hand and threw it at the wall,’ he wrote.

Another time he told of how Michaela [a lap dancer] had slapped him after they had sex. ‘I felt very strongly that I needed to avenge the slap . . . I spat in her face,’ he wrote. 

Brand would move to LA to pursue his Hollywood career after he resigned from the BBC in 2008.

He started dating Katy Perry and married the star before their whirlwind romance ended in 2011 in acrimonious fashion when he sent her a text message saying he wanted a divorce. 

Brand is spotted departing the Wembley venue after delivering his stand-up routine last week

The heartbreaking moment was captured during the I Kissed A Girl And I Liked It star’s ‘Part Of Me’ documentary and showed Perry sobbing before she was due to go on stage. 

It is also in America that the most serious accusation of rape is suggested to have taken place.   

In an interview on Lorraine in 2017, Brand spoke about his time in Hollywood. He said: ‘I suppose if you are in a position of some success people will let you be a nutter as long as they are making money out of it…

‘There’s a certain point where they don’t really like it… in a way it’s not good to live like that but it was a sort of exciting experience.’ 

In his 2010 follow-up, Booky Wooky 2: This Time It’s Personal, Brand discusses his internal battles with how he treats women.

He wrote: ‘What kind of man was I? Treating women in this way? If this is what I’m telling you, can you imagine what’s being left out?’  

In 2013, Brand admitted to being a ‘sex narcissist’ when speaking with Richard Herring for his theatre podcast. 

Talking about helping others to give his life some ‘kernel of truth’ he said: ‘I’ve f***ed lots of people, I’ve had loads of money, I’ve been in some – terrible – films. I know nothing works. 

One of the more unusual things Brand has done in his varied career appeared in a newly re-emerged video

Later he is seen cutting his toenails and giving him a shave before they retire to a sofa

James appeared to be grateful to Brand for the opportunity during the unusual documentary

‘I know none of it is real, my last shot at anything that might mean something. That might make my life have some value is to live lovingly to people and try it, even though it’s against some of my instincts.

‘I’m narcissistic and I want to f*** people and I love attention. All them things are true. I’ve always wanted that, I love showing off.’  

Brand would later make a crass joke about rape during the chat with Herring as he said it ‘wasn’t the extraordinary I’m trying to protect [about myself], it’s the mundanity’.

‘Oh, I also raped someone once,’ he said, before pausing. ‘I killed her after, so.’ 

One of the more unusual things Brand has done in his varied career appeared in a recently re-emerged video. 

It saw him befriend a homeless man James and invite him into his home to stay the night.

In extraordinary scenes Brand at once point shares a bath with the gentleman and washes his hair.

Later he is seen cutting his toenails and giving him a shave before they retire to a sofa.

Brand then puts on Simon and Garfunkel’s emotional hit Bridge Over Troubled Water as the camera zooms on to James’s face. 

The tight crop on the homeless man’s eyes appear to show him becoming emotional in what seems to be something of an exploitative moment. 

Russell Brand’s comments in full:  

Hello there you awakening wonders. Now this is not the usual type of video we make on this channel where we critique, attack and undermine the news in all its corruption because in this story I am the news.

I have received two extremely disturbing letters – or a letter and an email – one from a mainstream media TV company, one from a newspaper listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks, as well as some pretty stupid stuff, like my community festival should be stopped and I shouldn’t be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this channel.

But amidst this litany of astonishing rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute. These allegations pertain to a time when I was in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies, and as I’ve written about extensively in my books I was very, very promiscuous.

During that time of promiscuity the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual. I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent, and I am being transparent about it now as well.

And to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question is there another agenda at play. 

Particularly when we have seen coordinated media attacks before, like Joe Rogan where he dared to take a medicine the mainstream media didn’t approve of and we saw a spate of headlines of media outlets around the world using the same language.

I am aware that you guys in the comments have been for a while saying ‘watch out Russell, they’re coming for you,’ ‘you are getting too close to the truth’, ‘Russell Brand did not kill himself’.’

I know a year ago there was a spate of articles: Russell Brand is a conspiracy theorists; Russell Brand is right wing.

I am aware of newspapers making phone calls, sending letters to people I know. For ages and ages, it’s been clear to me or at least feels to be there’s a serious and consorted agenda to control these kinds of spaces and these kind of voices.

I need my voice along with your voice. I don’t mind them using my books and my stand up to talk about my promiscuous sexual conduct in the past. What I seriously refute are these very, very serious, criminal allegations.

Also its worth mentioning that there are witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narratives that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct, apparently in what seems to be to me a coordinated attack.

Now, I don’t want to get into this any further because of the serious nature of the allegations but I feel like I’m being attacked and plainly they are working very closely together.

We are obviously going to look into this matter because it is very, very serious. 

In the meantime, I want you to stay close, stay awake but more importantly than any of that, if you can stay free. 

The hilarious Fren family from Newcastle are recognised the world over courtesy of their starring role in Channel 9 reality show Travel Guides . I had no idea where they were when I talked to them via a conference call this week but Cathy was interrupted by a passer-by – “Are you from Travel Guides ?” “Yes we are!” – and they started chatting. She doesn’t mind a chat, and neither does Mark. “One of the funny things is, I was getting breakfast and this guy comes up to me and goes ‘I know you, you’re from Travel Guides aren’t you?’ And I said ‘yes, where are you from?’ And he said ‘I’m from Israel, we loved the episode you did in Israel and we watch it all the time’,” he said. “It really is quite amazing. We’re running into a lot of Australians overseas as well. The popularity of the show is getting bigger and bigger and so is ours.” Adds Victoria: “The four of us can’t go out together without being recognised.” Cathy and Mark, and their children Jonathon and Victoria, are about to hit our television screens again for three 90-minute episodes of Travel Guides . The series follows four groups, including fellow Novocastrians Matt and Brett, as they travel overseas and take part in activities while providing a down-to-earth review of their experiences. The stars of the show are ordinary people living a life most of us can only dream of. The Frens previously owned and operated Bavarian restaurant Oma’s Kitchen on Newcastle’s Watt Street for 10 years. Their television careers came about almost by accident: Cathy auditioned for a cooking show and a year later received a call about a new reality series called Travel Guides . And the rest is history. Read more: The high flying Frens are back in business “Once we get our packing list and we know what the temperature is going to be, suitcases are packed and we get to the airport, whether it’s international or domestic, and are then told where we are off to. “That element of surprise is what we really love.” Travel Guides will take television audiences to South Africa (November 21) and the UK (November 28) followed by a special “best of” episode on December 5 where the teams recount their favourite destinations and activities. “The South African episode is absolutely amazing. One of the activities that we do, only a handful of people around the world have actually done it,” Mark said. “And England and Scotland are going to be hilarious.” The Frens return home to Newcastle “just before Christmas”. Each season takes about five months to film and they might come home “for a couple of days between trips”. “This one has been a long season, with lots of different places. But that’s the beauty of Travel Guides , they try to pick places that Australians would go to, or should go to, and then they pick different activities that you normally wouldn’t do at those places, and I think that’s where the popularity of the show comes from,” Cathy said. “It’s always a bit left of centre and that’s what we like about it. “And travelling as a family is great, we get to make all these memories together. We’re still very appreciative and humbled by the fact that we’re still on the show.” N THE NEWS: Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date. We care about the protection of your data. Read our Privacy Policy.

Taylor Swift may have been perfectly primed for Travis Kelce‘s pursuit of her, at least according to a newly resurfaced video clip.

In a 2012 interview with Extra, Taylor spoke about how her mostly low-key suitors at the time had eschewed grand romantic gestures when trying to get her attention.

Kelce previously spoke about his attempts to catch up with Taylor, 33, while on her blockbuster Eras tour, where he had hoped to give her a bracelet with his phone number on it.

He appears to have had the right idea, though, as the singer — who enjoyed an ‘affectionate’ late-night dinner with him after she attended his Kansas City game against the Chicago Bears on Sunday — was recently seen wearing his birthstone on a necklace.

In the clip, which made rounds thanks to a TikTok video, Taylor said she wished guys would do something ‘crazy’ to get her attention. 

Missing out: Taylor Swift complained in a resurfaced 2012 interview with Extra that none of her suitors at the time had made grand romantic gestures to woo her

Getting serious? The clip started making the rounds on TikTok after she attended new beau Travis Kelce’s Kansas City Chief’s game against the Chicago Bears; seen in July in Hollywood

Extra’s Renee Bargh began by asking Taylor what the ‘craziest thing’ was that a boy had ever done to get her ‘attention.’

‘Nobody ever does anything crazy to get my attention!’ the singer replied in exasperation, which got a shocked response from the interviewer, who urged men to ‘take note.’

Taylor was quick to add that several of her fans had done extreme things to get her attention, though.

She said the ‘nice fans’ had made songs for her and videos, which she added was ‘really nice’ and ‘sweet,’ though it didn’t sound as if she would consider any of those gestures as a romantic prelude.

But thinking back about men who had tried to court her, she added about their romantic gestures, ‘I can’t remember, so I guess there hasn’t been anything.’

However, she got an excited look on her face and joked that that was ‘good.’

‘It’s easier, the bar is set really low for anyone I date in the future to come in and be, like, a great guy,’ she added. ‘I’ll be like, “Oh, you exist? This is so crazy.”‘

Taylor’s under-the-radar romances were best exemplified by her last major romance with actor Joe Alwyn.

Missing out: ‘Nobody ever does anything crazy to get my attention!’ the singer said in exasperation, which got a shocked response from the interviewer, who urged men to ‘take note’

Only improving from here: She joked that it was ‘good,’ because ‘the bar is set really low for anyone I date in the future to come in and be, like, a great guy’

Too much attention: Taylor’s under-the-radar romances were best exemplified by her last major romance with actor Joe Alwyn, who eschewed the spotlight and reportedly split due to it; seen in January 2020

Sapped of charisma: Even the normally over-the-top Matty Healy from The 1975 turned down his antics during his brief fling with Taylor earlier this year; seen in Chicago in August

The couple, who dated for six years before their breakup in April of this year, kept their love largely out of the spotlight, making it a noteworthy event whenever they were seen together in public.

Joe reportedly was made uncomfortable by the public interest in his relationship with the Anti-Hero singer, which contributed to the end of their relationship.

Even her brief fling with The 1975’s Matty Healy was largely conducted out of the public eye, a major departure for the singer and guitarist, who is known for his attention-getting and sometimes-offensive antics. 

But her newest romantic interest, Travis, doesn’t seem to be afraid of going all out to get Taylor’s attention — and win her love.

Back in July, Travis revealed on his New Heights podcast that he had hoped to introduce himself to Taylor when he attended one of her Eras Tour stops.

‘I wanted to give Taylor Swift [a bracelet] with my number on it,’ the 33-year-old tight end shared, but he learned that the singer’s devotion to putting on the best performance possible made it impossible to chat with her.

‘I was disappointed that she doesn’t talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice for the 44 songs that she sings, so I was a little butt-hurt I didn’t get to hand her one of the bracelets I made for her,’ he said.

Travis’ interest in her clearly didn’t wane, and he shared on the Pat McAfee podcast this month that he tried to turn the tables by inviting her to see him play football.

Wooing her: But Travis revealed that he tried to meet Taylor at one of her shows to give her a bracelet with his number on it. After failing, he urged her to check out one of his games in a flirty exchange; seen Sunday in Kansas City, Missouri

Big fan: During the game, Taylor was spotted enthusiastically cheering on Travis and Kansas City as the Chiefs beat the Bears 41–10 while catching up with his mother; seen Sunday

Dining out: Afterward, the two enjoyed an intimate dinner together that kept them out until 2 a.m. 

‘I told her, “You know, I’ve seen you rock the stage in Arrowhead [Stadium], you might have to come see me rock the stage in Arrowhead and see which one’s a little more lit.” So, we’ll see what happens in the near future,’ he said.

He added that he ‘threw the ball in her court,’ though it’s unclear if he was aware at the time that Taylor planned to attend his game on Sunday, which also marked the first time they have been spotted together in public.

During the game, Taylor was spotted enthusiastically cheering on Travis and Kansas City as the Chiefs beat the Bears 41–10.

The Lover singer could be seen rooting for the home team next to Travis’ mother, and afterward she met up with the football star in the locker room before they headed to their intimate dinner.