#1949 - Russell Brand

Russell Brand (0:15)

Thank you for making me welcome in your space and your country.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

My pleasure. How you been, brother?

Russell Brand (0:21)

It's been an unusual time. I've not been here for three years. Just went to Los Angeles, I have a house there, visited it. It was like a sort of a time capsule, you know, like notes for stand-up shows I was doing there.

And the graffiti has changed in the city of LA, and the feeling of that city has altered.

And you can tell that some sort of window, some portal has been passed through. And of course, I'm aware of, because it's a global event, I'm aware of what that has been. But it's strange to be back here.

Joe Rogan (0:50)

Yeah, it's interesting when you go away from something and then you come back and there's like a tangible feeling of change.

Russell Brand (0:57)

You know, it's...

I mean, I guess because I talk about American culture a lot, I come with a degree of anticipation. But it was a torrential rainstorm in Los Angeles. I'm aware that like you've moved out of there, that a lot of significant people in the space that I work in have moved out of there. And there was a feeling of uncanniness and eeriness. Some of the familiar sights for homelessness have been cleansed, as if by Travis Bickle's reign. You know, it's sort of like just...

Joe Rogan (1:30)

They've moved homeless people?

Russell Brand (1:31)

For example, Gower Street. The Gower Street bridge, there would always be sort of like a little tented community there. That seems to have been moved along, and may be a perfect metaphor for that problem. You know, moving them, rather than... You feel like those homeless people are still somewhere, rather than that problem has found a resolution.

Joe Rogan (1:50)

No one really has a tangible resolution. I haven't heard one resolution that's like, okay, that we could put our fingers on, that's real.

Russell Brand (1:57)

Do you know that in our country, during the pandemic, in London especially, but also in other cities, they temporarily housed homeless people as one of the pandemic measures? Like, we can't have people on the streets, they'll cough on someone. Put them all in hotels, put them in hostels. They solved it, and then when they reached the point where they were happy that the pandemic had leveled out, they kicked them all back out again.

Right, that's it, we're not worried anymore.

Joe Rogan (2:20)

Get back out there. I wonder why they did that. Do you think it was just too much time and effort to manage those people? Like, they're shooting up in the hotels and causing ruckus?

Well, I wonder what was the reason for putting them back on the street, because it seemed like if they solved that, like, they should be like, oh, well, you know, let's just keep dedicating these resources to keep these people housed.

Russell Brand (2:41)

I feel like that the anomaly was the housing rather than the ejecting. I feel like that when it was convenient and suitable, they could find a solution to homelessness that was an economic one. And then when it wasn't necessary anymore, they just pulled the rug out from under it. I'm sure like, yeah, that comes with complexity. When I was first working in media, when I was still using drug addict myself, I did these things that are considered to be like psychological jackass. You know, that was a big show at that time, those amazing guys doing those incredible stunts. And I was like, well, what if you did the psychological version of that? So I had like a boxing match with my dad. I had a homeless guy move in my house. I seduced an octogenarian lady. I jerked off a man in a toilet. All of these things were the periphery of my limits as a drug-using young man, just trying to make my way in media. When I had that homeless guy come live in my house with me, James was his name, God rest his soul.

Like, it was interesting to encounter that there's a reason. Of course, I fully accept and appreciate that that could happen to any of us, that any of us with a few wrong choices could end up destitute and lost without the kind of support and good fortune I've had in various areas in my life. I'm sure it could have happened to me. Of course, it could have.

But there was a sort of like a gravity pulling him back out into the street. You know, there's a gravity pulling it. It was like he couldn't deal with being in a house.