Ferne McCann said she was 18 when she first met Russell Brand. She wrote that the encounter led to sex after he invited her back to his house.
In Cross My Heart, the 2016 autobiography, McCann said she first met Brand after a gig he had done in Brixton. She wrote: "I was 18 when I first met Russell after a gig he'd done in Brixton. I really did fancy him."
Cross My Heart account
McCann described how Brand asked her and the girls she was with to come back with him. She wrote: "[He] invited me and the girls I was with back to his house… After a while we all got in the hot tub in our bras and knickers."
She then said she and Brand went upstairs while the others stayed downstairs. "Then we went upstairs while the others were roaming around downstairs. One thing led to another. He led the way and the sex just happened," she wrote.
McCann also described her state of mind at the time. "The first time we slept together I was very naïve and star-struck. I knew then that it was just a one night thing and I honestly didn't care. But when we met again last year I was more mature and knew what I wanted," she wrote.
Russell Brand after conviction
The resurfacing matters because Brand is now 51 and serving a ten-year sentence for rape and sexual assault. His case has moved beyond a single allegation: detectives are assessing information from more than half a dozen new complainants, and police are doing final work on files of evidence submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service in relation to claims from two further women.
One of those claims includes an allegation that he raped a 16-year-old. Yesterday, new allegations of abuse also emerged from a former girlfriend who accused him of sexually assaulting her and making her brush her teeth until they bled.
What the record adds
McCann’s account does not read like a criminal complaint. It sits beside a broader record that now includes a conviction, new complainants and a possible second trial. That makes her 2016 account more than tabloid recycling: it is a published, on-the-record description of a sexual encounter involving a public figure who says she was 18 at the time.
For readers tracking where this goes next, the procedural answer is narrow. A second trial is now a live prospect, but the evidence pipeline is still the key pressure point, with police work continuing on material already sent to the Crown Prosecution Service in relation to two further women.
Brixton and last year
McCann’s own framing is the uncomfortable part. She wrote that she was “very naïve and star-struck” the first time, then described meeting Brand again last year as a more mature adult who “knew what I wanted.” Those two versions of the same relationship sit in the same book, and together they explain why the story has resurfaced with force after his conviction.
For now, the record is doing the work. McCann has already said what happened, Brand is already serving the sentence, and the next legal step depends on what those files add up to.
