Russell Brand | The Messiah Complex?

Algarve Life - Amanda Gleaves
4 min readOct 18, 2024

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Has he really converted to Christianity or is it just another performance?

The first time I ever saw Russell Brand was in the film Bedtime Stories. I just loved the character that he played in that film.
I thought he was so good in it. He got very good reviews for that role too

I saw a genuinely caring person. I felt somehow that that was his true nature or his true ‘spirit’. He was a communicator, he was also great with the kids, you could see how they responded to him.

He is kind of hot too 😊

After that I started to follow him on social media. Not really sure why. (No it wasn’t because he was hot — -honest) I saw him in a couple of films after that, and he was absolutely awful. However, those roles seemed to reflect a different side of ‘Russell Brand’. The womaniser, the misogynist. (I am talking about the roles he played, not actually saying that he is those things…)

He went from stand up comedian, to actor, and back to stand up comedian again.

I remember when he had his “Messiah Complex Tour” back in 2013. At that time he was celebrating his sober years. He was now addiction free. He wanted to help others too. He had left Hollywood behind and started doing stand up again.

I drew this picture back in 2013 — I can’t beleive that was 11 years ago!

He had just launched his first book too; My Booky Wook, a memoir that was published in 2007. The book details his life from his troubled childhood through his rise to fame, including his struggles with addiction and his career in comedy and acting.

Personally I have never read the book. He has written quite a few since.

Brand originally started out as stand up comic, who was known for his extreme comedy. Like cutting up a pigs head on stage or cutting up copies of the Quran. Which, by the way, he happened to reveal later on that it wasn’t a very funny thing to do. However, he felt that this was his way of saying that something wasn’t right with the world.

Kind of an ironic way to protest really.

I never saw that part of his life. I think that is when he was struggling with addiction and the drugs were winning.

When I started to follow him on social media I could see that he was very articulate and seemed to be quite smart too. He was kind of interesting. You could almost see that if you waiting long enough, you would see something ‘evolve’.

He had a hard upbringing. This is probably what has enabled him to adapt so much.

He didn’t come from a particularly wealthy family. His father left when Brand was only 6 months old. He was brought up by his mother, who struggled with significant health challenges.
Despite all this. He was resilient and determined.

I suspect that he may have been a bit rebellious too.

He attended Grays School Media Arts College in Essex and later went to the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London. He also briefly studied at the Drama Centre London but was expelled during his first year.

He is definitely a performer.

Anyway…over time I saw his rants and he became very political, but he was also starting to get into meditation and the more ‘spiritual’ things in life.

Maybe he is just a man searching for a solution. Like many of us. He wants to know, “why?”.

Why is there such suffering? Why is there no justice? Why are politicians corrupt?
I think that these are the questions that many people are asking these days. Right?

The difference with Brand is that he has a rather large ‘soapbox’. He had a vast audience. His fame had now moved into a different realm.

Social media.

He was present on many different social media platforms and had created quite a following.

Then came the accusations. We all know which ones.

These disappeared as quickly as the came, and Brand reinvented himself yet again.

During his ‘spiritual’ phase I suspected that it would not be long before he got into the Bible.

Book of
Instructions
Before
Leaving
Earth
(I saw the above in a Mike Meyers’ film and thought it was pretty funny! )

Then came the Baptism. After that he delved more and more into Christianity. But he still mixes it up with his conspiracy theories and political rants. he has now become somewhat a Christian conspiracy theorist. (Christpiracist?)

Is there even such a thing.

He posts a lot on his public social media. But the responses are now often negative and critical — his following seems to have diminished somewhat on certain platforms but he is stronger than ever on others.

He has gone full cycle yet again. From the God Complex to conspiracy theorist and right back to the God Complex again.

I spotted this on his website: My picture of him was not that far off I see:
He doesn’t have the dove or the bread in his hair…lol

I have enjoyed watching Brand morph into what he has become today and sincerely hope that he has found what he was looking for.

:)

https://www.russellbrand.com/

Here is an interesting interview with Russell Brand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnj92uUI1ZY&ab_channel=Jake%27sTakes

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Algarve Life - Amanda Gleaves
Algarve Life - Amanda Gleaves

Written by Algarve Life - Amanda Gleaves

I have been living in the Algarve in Portugal since 1989! I have been teaching Portuguese to foreigners for nearly 20 years! https://portugueseinsixweeks.com/

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