Since the hardened Pharisee Saint Paul had his vision on the road to Damascus, surely there has not been such an improbable conversion to the Christian faith.
Russell Brand announced this week that he had become a Christian and was baptized last weekend. The Apostle Paul was baptized in Damascus, after which “the scales fell from his eyes” and his blindness was cured. The disgraced comedian’s experience was apparently far more prosaic: he said he was completely submerged in the notoriously dirty River Thames.
The Mail has learned that embattled Brand’s spiritual rebirth – if that is what it is – has been accompanied by an improvement in his earthly fortunes. Thames Valley Police have closed their investigation into a woman’s allegations that he stalked and harassed her between 2018 and 2022.
A Thames Valley spokesperson said: “We have carried out a thorough investigation. There are now no new lines of inquiry unless new information comes to light. Brand remains the subject of a parallel investigation by the Metropolitan Police into various allegations of sexual offences.
He was accused by four women of rape, sexual assault and psychological abuse allegedly committed over a seven-year period, from 2006 to 2013, when he was at the height of his fame and working for the BBC and Channel 4 as well as starring in Hollywood films.
Russell Brand announced this week that he had become a Christian and was baptized last weekend. He said he was completely submerged in the notoriously dirty River Thames.
All Saints, an Anglican church near Brand’s home in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, seemed a likely candidate for baptizing him – but the church denied doing so.
Brand has vigorously denied the allegations, insisting his relationships were “always consensual.”
His interest in Christianity, however, appears to have increased significantly since he became embroiled in the accusations in 2023. Brand said he was baptized because he saw it “an opportunity to put the past behind him” and ” leave his sins behind.
Reactions to the news of his baptism were mixed. Some Christians welcomed him into faith, citing Luke’s Gospel about God’s greater joy over a single sinner who repents than over 99 people who remain righteous.
Others are skeptical, some suspecting a publicity stunt intended to burnish his reputation and still others doubting a man who promotes many New Age ideas and philosophies and who seems to have a choice attitude towards religion.
He had previously said he was a Buddhist, and within hours of his baptism he uploaded a video in which he discussed predicting the future with tarot cards.
Brand claimed that “many Christians would say that tarot and even yoga are a kind of heresy”, but – indulging his pretentious and not always convincing passion for long words – asked if people could follow ” hybrid modalities” in their beliefs.
Brand has a tattoo of a crucifix on his right arm dating from at least 2019, suggesting that his interest in Christianity is not entirely fabricated.
He told his four million Instagram followers that his baptism was an “incredible and profound experience”.
He said, “This is my path now.” And I already feel incredibly blessed, relieved, nourished, supported.
However, Brand, whose wife Laura (daughter of golfer Bernard Gallacher) is Catholic, was strangely vague about the church into which he had been received.
And one would think that any cleric baptizing an offender as notorious as Brand – who has spoken openly about his history of womanizing and drug use – would not hesitate to say so. But inquiries by the Mail around Brand’s home near Marlow, on the River Thames in Buckinghamshire, revealed that no one, even at a church he attended, could give any idea who had it. baptized or where.
Reactions to the news of Brand’s baptism were mixed. Some Christians have welcomed him into the faith while others are skeptical that it is simply a publicity stunt meant to save his reputation.
In March, Brand said he had visited Anglican and Catholic churches and was considering Orthodox churches. He has made repeated references to Catholicism in his online missives and recently used a rosary to pray. He said he used a Catholic prayer app, Hallow, and watched videos of a Catholic priest, Father Mike Schmitz, on YouTube.
However, Catholic canon law states that, unless “necessary,” baptisms must take place in a church or oratory. Catholic sources said it was very unlikely that the ceremony was performed by a Catholic cleric.
Brand also said he had investigated Anglicanism and completed the Alpha evangelism course.
Anglican churches sometimes practice river baptisms, including in the Thames, as do Pentecostals. According to Brand, he plucked the petals from a flower to decide which church would baptize him, reciting: “Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Pentecostal…”
A river baptism sounds like classic Brand – for him it’s not just a jet of water from a church baptismal font, it has to be melodramatic.
But the Mail visited churches and spoke to clergy and church officials in Henley-on-Thames and Marlow, and none confessed to the act. Dennis Harwood, warden of St Peter and St Paul Church in Medmenham, near Marlow, said: “We are totally traditional in the Hambleden Valley group and use a baptismal font in the church and it is all.
“No church in the valley participates in this kind of service.”
A church leader said: “We do do baptisms, but we do them here in the church, but it’s not theatrical enough for him. »
Most churches only baptize at the baptismal font. One exception is All Saints, an Anglican church in Marlow that also runs Alpha courses and which Brand has attended in the past, according to a photo on social media. This seemed like a likely candidate, but All Saints also denied doing so.
Father Calvin Robinson, an Old Catholic priest and conservative commentator, posted on X (formerly Twitter) last Friday urging people to “please keep Russell Brand in your prayers.” As his baptism approaches, and immediately after, he will come under heavy attacks from the enemy. There will be those who tempt him, doubt him, resent him, cause him to stumble, argue over his denomination.
But about the baptism he said: “It wasn’t me but it’s a very good thing. I pray for him.
And where could Brand have been baptized? Brand’s garden in the pretty thatched house he bought for £3million in 2015 leads straight to the river.
But no neighbors noticed any baptism. One of them pointed out that although the river seems calm, it is quite rough because it is near a lock.
An elderly neighbor laughed and said: “I can’t believe he would have been baptized in that part of the Thames – he would have been washed away and never been seen again. »
Brand shocked locals when he bought The Crown Inn, in the south Oxfordshire hamlet of Pishill, and made it the base of his internet broadcasting career. The Mail reported in January that despite being “cancelled” over the sex offense allegations, he was making millions from “conspiracy theory videos”, recorded in the converted pub for the media platform Social Rumble.
But Brand seems popular with his neighbors, who say he chats with them when he jogs or walks his dog.
Some were surprised by the news that he had been baptized.
Shepherd Sam Horner said: “The fact is he’s a big believer in not going in the river because it’s dirty.”
Another stifled a laugh when told Brand was baptized in the River Thames. “He will have caught a few bugs in there. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard. I haven’t seen Russell in a long time. It’s pure comedy.
Brand likes to laugh, but that can’t be the response he expected following his watery admission to the Christian faith.
Additional reporting: Stephanie Condron and Ross Slater
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