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Each night before his Re: Birth stand-up tour, Russell Brand asks the audience to fill in a questionnaire detailing their most mortifying moments. As he talks to NME before a gig in Reading, he flicks through tonight’s catalogue of cringe. Crowd member Josh “got so drunk in front of my family that I ended up giving one of them a lapdance.” In the second row, Liz says “one of my grown-up sons recently gave me a black towel to match my bathroom. He told me he and his girlfriend had found it very useful to have period sex on.” Hannah bristles that on day one of university, she was given 15 free condoms – and used them all in one night. John is ashamed he was kicked out of a friend’s house for rifling through his sister’s knicker-drawer….
“People admit to sometimes really sweet, strange things, but a lot of the time it’s really shocking,” laughs Brand.
Throughout his career – as a stand-up, broadcaster, actor, author, podcaster, columnist, political commentator and a mental health and drug rehabilitation activist – Brand has been equally unflinching in his honesty. He recently published his fourth book, Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions, a self-help book based on the 12-step programme used by Alcoholics Anonymous and related groups, from the experience of someone who’s been held hostage to his own addictions – to heroin, alcohol, sex, fame, and food. Having last used drugs in 2002, it’s clear he’s sincere in his hope to help others plot a road-map to recovery. “I didn’t know back then that people could get clean from drugs,” he says. “I wasn’t even aware of the cliché of the reformed rock star or any of those ideas.”
Now, in a far cry from his ‘Shagger of the Year’ days, he’s married with a baby, and lives with two cats, a dog and 10 chickens. As he prepares to celebrate the book’s publication with a special…
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