Jemima Goldsmith, a 52-year-old television producer, has publicly accused her former partner Russell Brand of physical assault. In a detailed statement released on social media on Monday, she described the relationship as involving violence, coercive control, and abuse. Goldsmith emphasized that she has always stood firmly with Brand’s other victims while sharing her own painful experiences.
Her remarks came shortly after Brand received a prison sentence of more than ten years. On the platform X, Goldsmith expressed admiration for the women who testified at Brand’s trial, noting their courage in ensuring justice was served. She revealed that during a violent incident in 2014, she called the police to have Brand removed from her house. At that time, she decided not to press charges or go public with the matter because she was concerned about the impact of media attention on her teenage children.
Goldsmith stated that she has neither seen nor spoken to Brand since that period in 2014. While she acknowledged that her pain is less than what the women who testified in court suffered, she noted that the experience had a lasting impact on her life. On Thursday, Brand was found guilty of raping a fan and sexually assaulting three women in separate incidents that occurred between 2004 and 2009. He was cleared of two additional rape charges and one charge of attempted indecent assault.
Known professionally as Jemima Khan, Goldsmith is reported to have been in a relationship with Brand for approximately one year starting around September 2013. She mentioned in her post that she assisted journalists who exposed Brand in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary and in reports published by The Times and Sunday Times in 2023. She added that she had agreed to testify to his abusiveness in court if the newspaper publishing the victims’ accounts faced a lawsuit.
The new comments emerged amid renewed press interest in a harassment injunction that Goldsmith and Brand secured against a woman named Szilvia Berki in 2014. Goldsmith, who married former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan in 1995, argued that recent online commentary and media coverage had presented an untrue narrative. She said this coverage opened her up to vile hatred and abuse online.
Berki had made allegations against Brand to the police after being booked to give him a massage at Goldsmith’s home in June 2014. Goldsmith stated that she was present during the entire interaction and did not see anything untoward, despite Brand’s later guilty verdicts for assaulting other women and his subsequent physical assault of Goldsmith. She added that if she had seen any man abuse a woman, she would have done her utmost to stop them without hesitation.
Goldsmith alleged that a series of untrue stories appeared in the tabloid press and that Berki launched a campaign of threatening abuse through emails and online platforms. The Guardian reported that it had been unable to reach Berki for comment. Brand and Goldsmith obtained a harassment order against Berki, which effectively banned her from speaking to anyone about her allegations against Brand.
The injunction was granted by Mr Justice Jay, a high court judge and former leading counsel in the Leveson inquiry. The order was brought to light by the non-profit campaigning thinktank Tax Policy Associates, which was founded by former tax lawyer Dan Neidle, following Brand’s conviction.
