Russell Brand

Brand got engaged to singer-actress Katy Perry in 2009 after he met her for the first time on the sets of ‘Get Him to Greek’. They got married within a year in India on October 23, 2010 but he ended the marriage by filing for divorce on 30 December 2011,and it was finalized in July 2012.

Russell Brand was born on June 4, 1975 in Essex, England, to Ronal Henry Brand and Barbara Elizabeth Nicholas. His father is a famous photographer and his parents got divorced when he was only six months old. His mother raised him single handedly.

Brand had a bit of a disgruntled childhood and then subsequent disturbed youth. He was sexually abused by his tutor when he was young and his mother contracted cancer of the breast and uterine when he was only 8.

Owing to his mother’s falling health, Brand used to live with his relatives and by the age of 14, when he just entered the teens, it was diagnosed that he suffered from bulimia nervosa. Such drastically messy formative years led to his drug abuse problems.

He attended the Grays School Media Arts College and went to the Italia Conti Academy after that in 1991 but he was expelled in his first year for the usage of illegal drugs and not paying enough attention to the studies.

Brand always had a sharp personality and had a creative bend of mind and an inclination to humor and performance. In 2000, for the first time, he came out with his talent in public by doing a stand-up at the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year.

It was the same year when Brand got a big entertainment opportunity to present as a video journalist on MTV ON ‘Dancefloor Chart’. He toured various nightclubs in Ibiza and England for the show and also hosted ‘Select’.

He left MTV in 2002 and soon after made ‘RE:Brand’, a documentary and comedy television program on cultural taboos. It was Brand’s creative vision and he hosted it with Matt Morgan. He also appeared on ‘Cruise of the Gods’ and ‘White Teeth’.

Brand became famous when he hosted ‘Big Brother's Eforum’ in 2004. He also performed his one-man show in Edinburgh Festival, ‘Better Now’, in which he discussed his heroin addiction. He did another show ‘Eroticised Humour’ in the following year.

In 2005, he was flooded with opportunities to perform on the television and did BBC sitcom ‘Blessed’. Around that time, he also got a British TV debate comedy show ‘Russell Brand’s Got Issues’ on E4 Network.

Brand became a known figure in the industry with his show on BBC Radio ‘The Russell Brand Show’. It aired from 2006-2008 and he hosted it with Matt Morgan. It won the Podcast of the Year .net Awards in 2007.