Andrew Sachs' granddaughter says Brand paid for her rehab after Sachsgate
The granddaughter of Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs says she does not see Russell Brand as a rapist from her "own personal experience" but states "women’s stories should always be believed and taken seriously".
Speaking with Piers Morgan this evening, Georgina Baillie recalled her time with the comedian – referring to it as a "friends with benefit situation" – and the subsequent infamous 'Sachsgate' scandal, after Brand and Jonathan Ross called her late grandfather Andrew Sachs during a pre-recorded Radio 2 show and left a voicemail detailing Brand's sexual encounters with Ms Baillie.
During the TalkTV interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored tonight, Ms Baillie also revealed comic Brand helped her pay for a stint in rehab after mutual friends reached out to the former Hollywood actor to let him know she was struggling to battle addiction issues and needed help. Ms Baillie experienced addiction issues "for about 10- 15 years" – with her battle beginning before the Sachsgate scandal in 2008.
On her reaction to the allegations in the Sunday Times and on Channel 4’s Dispatches at the weekend, Ms Baillie said: "Initially, first of all I have been a survivor of sexual abuse and I will always believe victims because why wouldn’t you? … Accusers? It depends, I wasn’t in the room, we don’t know what happened there.
Andrew Sachs' granddaughter Georgina Baillie appeared on Piers Morgan's show this evening (Piers Morgan Uncensored/Youtube)"But my initial thought was, ‘Oh my god, I’m glad I’m not Russell.’ Because it’s behaviour he was doing when he wasn’t well. When you are an addict, you can cross-addict … you can be off booze and drugs but if you are not on a programme you can be acting out a sex addiction, or a food addiction. And he wasn’t working a programme and as an addict in recovery, I know he wasn’t well."
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During the explosive Channel 4 Dispatches documentary Russell Brand: In Plain Sight, which was made in conjunction with The Times and Sunday Times and aired on Saturday night, Brand, 48, was accused of rape, sexual assaults and emotional abuse – which the comedian strongly denies.
On Piers Morgan Uncensored this evening, Ms Baillie agreed that no matter what demons he was fighting when it came to his addictions it did not justify sexual assault, a claim he vehemently denies. "It doesn’t," she added. When asked by host Morgan if she recognises the man being accused in reports, she replied: "No I don’t but I’m not saying they are lies because you know, it was a long time ago. We all… I think they should be believed and get some help. Because part of the recovery programme - you must make amends for these things. That’s what he did for me and hopefully he will do the same for the others."
Ms Baillie first became known publicly in 2008 when a romantic relationship with Brand hit the headlines thanks to the Get Him to the Greek actor calling Ms Baillie's grandfather Andrew Sachs during a pre-recorded Radio 2 show. Brand and Jonathan Ross phoned the late Fawlty Towers actor and left messages on his voicemail. It was in these messages that Brand bragged about having a sexual relationship with Sachs’ granddaughter Ms Baillie.
At the time of their romantic relationship, Ms Baillie was 20 and Brand was 30. Brand was sacked from his BBC Radio 2 show after thousands of complaints flooded in following the pre-recorded interview with talk show host Ross, 62.
Speaking on TalkTV this evening, Ms Baillie recalled the "Sachsgate" scandal and revealed Brand went on to pay for to stay in a rehabilitation facility - seemingly as a way of making amends for leaving the voicemail on Sachs' mobile phone years previously.
"It wasn’t pleasant. I was very young at the time, I was 23 years old when this story broke. It was a very unnerving time. Not only had my grandparents heard what I had been up to sexually, which anybody would recoil at, but then it was all the ‘boys will be boys’ attitude. ‘She’s only a s**t anyway, so who cares’. That was their only line of defence, to slut shame me, basically," Ms Baillie told host Piers when looking back at the scandal.
Brand and Ross pictured together in London in June 2013 (Getty Images)
Sachs passed after in November 2016 (Getty Images)She later went on to reveal: "I was struggling with addiction for about 10- 15 years and I was finding it very hard to get clean and sober. So one of my mutual friends between me and Russell called him up and said, ‘Georgie needs some help’, and so he sent me to rehab. And so I was physically separated from my drug of choice and I got some therapy and I think that had a big part to play in my recovery journey.
"He looked me in the eyes and he made his amends to me… he acknowledged it was a private relationship and it shouldn’t have been made public. At the time he had two daughters and it really made him grow and change and I felt it was genuine and I felt he was sorry."
Brand denies the allegations made against him in the Channel 4 Dispatches investigation. Speaking to his social media followers ina video posted on Saturday, ahead of the show airing, Brand said: "I’ve received two extremely disturbing letters, or a letter, and an email, one from a mainstream media TV company, one from a newspaper, listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks, as well as some pretty stupid stuff like, my community festival should be stopped, that I shouldn’t be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this channel, but amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute.
"These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies, and as I’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very very promiscuous. Now during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual. I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent, and I’m being transparent about it now as well, and to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal, that I absolutely deny, makes me question, is there another agenda at play?"
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* If you've been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999
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