I saw how brightly stars like Russell Brand could shine, but there is darkness in the shadows | Sophie Heawood

After years of celebrity interviews, I have learned not to be fooled by the allure of fame. We never really know them – we know what they want us to know

As I sat in Southwark crown court, listening to the final day of Russell Brand’s trial, there was one subject that came up repeatedly, invoked as often by his defence as the prosecution. I don’t mean sex or coercion, but fame. It ran through every victim impact statement and loomed so large in the courtroom that it felt as if it was almost on trial itself.

I’m an entertainment journalist who has been covering celebrities for more than 20 years – as long as Brand has been one – and I have written about him at various stages of his career. But I went to Southwark crown court as a member of the public who wanted to see justice done. For the women he had hurt, for the ones who couldn’t get as far as the courtroom, and for all of us who came of age at a time when rape culture was so fast and furious that young women mistook it for a joke that we were in on. In the age of lads’ mags, sex felt cheapened, yet somehow we were the ones who ended up paying for this. So it was doubly strange to sit in court and feel somehow complicit in it - in how this media culture had encouraged Russell Brand.

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