Brand and Walliams - are we finally believing women?

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Manveen Rana (1:38)

From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is The Story. I'm Manveen Rana.

This podcast contains discussions about sexual crimes. Let me take you back to 2006 Nelly Furtado's promiscuous was topping the charts. The Da Vinci Code was all the rage at the box office. And on Channel 4, the much lauded bad boy comedian of the moment was hosting his inaugural TV show.

SPEAKER_4 (2:12)

Cheers, please.

Russell Brand (2:13)

Thank you. I appreciate the applause. Nice, nice. If anything, I'll have an applause.

Manveen Rana (2:17)

The Russell Brand Show. On his first ever guests.

Russell Brand (2:21)

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome over here in the Russell Brand Show, Matt Lucas and Dave Walliams.

SPEAKER_4 (2:28)

There they are.

SPEAKER_6 (2:32)

Hello, Russell Brand.

Manveen Rana (2:36)

The chat was as outrageous and controversial as we'd all bizarrely come to expect. But looking back now, it was also oddly prescient.

Russell Brand (2:48)

You don't look like the two gayest straight blokes there are, aren't you?

SPEAKER_4 (2:51)

Well, you must be a man.

SPEAKER_8 (2:52)

Isn't it a wonderful smoke screen?

SPEAKER_7 (2:53)

Isn't it though?

Manveen Rana (2:54)

Isn't it glorious?

SPEAKER_7 (2:55)

It works wonderfully well.

Manveen Rana (2:57)

Twenty years on, Russell Brand is now a convicted rapist. And the latest episode of our sister podcast, The Trial of Russell Brand, has spoken to six new women who've made allegations of sexual misconduct and predatory behavior against him. Separately, David Walliams is accused of preying on girls as young as 15

Allegations that he denies. David Walliams has not been charged with any offense. All of this has started a reflection on the Noughties and how they shaped modern attitudes. So what was it about that period that allowed this misogynistic, abusive culture to flourish? Has it gone away? And are women now in a better position to call it out?

The story today, Brand and Walliams, are women finally being heard?

Sarah Ditum (4:07)

I think I probably had a slightly unusual noughties for some of my age.

In 2000, I was 19 and I was at university. And also when I was 19, I got pregnant with my first child.

Manveen Rana (4:23)

Sarah Ditum, a contributor to The Times and author of Toxic, Women, Fame and the Noughties.

Sarah Ditum (4:30)

I actually had him while I was at university, so I was not necessarily kind of out on the scene. But I was a voracious consumer of pop culture.

In lots of ways, it felt like a really exciting time to be a person who is interested in culture. Things were changing very, very fast because of the internet, the rise of digital TV, the kind of fragmentation in lots of ways of the media. It was a very vivid and exciting time to be interested in that stuff, even if looking back on it, a lot of what came out of it was not particularly wholesome or not stuff you would be particularly proud to look back on as enjoying in hindsight in every case.

Manveen Rana (5:13)

Take us back there. It is a little bit dark, but just remind us, what was the zeitgeist?

Sarah Ditum (5:20)