Russell Brand wrote that after kicking his childhood dog Topsy down the stairs, he’d follow her down and comfort her: “Oh Christ! Were you kicked down the stairs? This is terrible.”
Plant Based News founder Klaus Mitchell is revisiting that account as Brand faces prison for rape and sexual assault. Mitchell also recalled interviewing Brand in 2021, where Brand made inappropriate comments to the videographer and to Mitchell’s own wife, who felt incredibly disrespected.
In his 2007 memoir My Booky Wook, Brand described calling Topsy upstairs before kicking her down, then giving her a sympathetic cuddle. Earlier in the passage, he described holding her so tightly that she yelped, calling it “painful love.”
Brand wrote that his mother’s partner, Colin, had banned Topsy from going upstairs and that he felt “a lot of anger and hate” about the restriction. The passage doesn’t specify how old Brand was when he hurt her.
Mitchell describes the repeated cruelty and comfort as a warning sign, connecting the childhood account to Brand’s later sexual offences. The comparison between an evil upstairs self and a loving downstairs self came from Brand’s friend Matt Morgan, whom Brand credited in the book.
The memoir also includes Brand’s expression of remorse: “I feel very guilty about this conduct and try to offer amends by treating animals with respect at all times.”
Research has examined the relationship Mitchell is invoking. A 2019 review of 32 studies found that recurrent childhood animal cruelty was a significant predictor of later violence against people. The research also linked animal cruelty with nonviolent offending; it doesn’t establish that this episode caused Brand’s later crimes.
On November 9, 2026, Brand was sentenced to 10 years and 6 months for 1 rape and 3 sexual assaults following the November 5 verdict. He was acquitted of 2 other rape counts and 1 count of attempted indecent assault.
Judge Joel Bennathan told him, “You had also become a sexual predator.” Brand will remain on the sex offenders’ register for life.
My Booky Wook was published on November 15, 2007. Hodder & Stoughton withdrew it after the guilty verdict.