Russell Brand told police he had led a “very promiscuous” life and consensual sexual encounters had been “unfavourably reframed decades later”, his trial has heard.

The 51-year-old comedian blamed the allegations on “defamatory and fictitious” media reports. He said in a statement that he had had sexual encounters in countless locations and scenarios and kissed hundreds of people in public while trying to be “friendly, consensual and warm”.

Brand is accused of seven offences against six women in allegations spanning 10 years from 1999. He denies all the charges.

Wearing a grey suit and pale blue shirt, he sat in the dock on Tuesday as his statements to police were read to Southwark crown court in London.

The jury was told Brand was interviewed four times between November 2023 and July 2025, when he read prepared statements in which he insisted he had “never engaged in any non-consensual sexual activity”.

“I led a very promiscuous life in the past, which I have spent years openly denouncing,” he said in…