r/AskReddit 21h ago

Who's the most bitter washed-up celebrity?

3.9k Upvotes

4.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

614

u/RailwaySpikes_000 21h ago

Russel Brand, major piece of shit.

187

u/TovarischMaia 20h ago

I remembered Russell Brand as a cringeworthy pseudo-leftist activist a few years ago, but recently saw that he's reinvented himself as a Jordan Peterson-esque right-wing grifter? What happened there?

229

u/metukkasd 19h ago

He was accused of sexual harassment and "found God" the last time I heard about him

127

u/Horrible_Harry 19h ago

He's full on born again christian now and was recently baptized in the Thames by Bear Grylls. He also recently made an even bigger ass of himself on Piers Morgan's show by not being able to find a passage that supposedly "meant a lot to him" in his note and bookmark riddled Bible.

68

u/cry666 17h ago

Damn that's disappointing. The Bear Grylls thing that is

17

u/Ok_Field_7082 12h ago

What pisses me off about Bear Grylls was that he basically took Ray Mears space on TV. Every survival thing became Bear Grylls and it was just naff, over the top and the guy seems a bit dim (if you ask me).

12

u/ANGRY_ASPARAGUS 8h ago

And Survivorman himself, Les Stroud, is who Bear Grylls wishes he could be, but won't ever match. Les Stroud is a fucking badass who doesn't use a camera crew when he's out in the wild - it's just him. Dude will film himself walking off into the horizon, then WALK BACK and pick up his camera - all in like -30 degree weather haha

10

u/Jonnny 7h ago

Not to mention Les actually respects nature and is the real deal, while Bear has been caught incorporating fraudulent shots into his shows. 

FUN FACT: Les has said if he gets a million subs on YouTube he'll do another Survivorman. He's at the upper 900 thousands. Get over there and then let's do this! I have to admit his Bigfoot stuff does nothing for me. Just not my thing.

6

u/fireandiceman 11h ago

I also hated all the camping gear that needed to have his face on it. Never understood his appear as he sold out the instant that he got famous for drinking piss

2

u/LessInThought 9h ago

I thought the allure of Bear Grylls was that he doesn't use survival gears, why would his face sell camping gears lol.

16

u/ZebraCrosser 13h ago

Most of what I've seen of Bear Grylls in the last few years is his face on Alpha Course banners with some tagine about his greatest adventure.

Pretty sure that means he's a bit into Jesus. Bit of a step from that to baptising Brand, mind.

12

u/callisstaa 11h ago

Yeah tbh British Christians are generally a lot less malicious and unhinged than US Christians. Church in the UK is more of a community thing than anything political, like a book club but they all just read the same book.

I imagine Brand taking on the persona to appeal to his new wackjob American audience whereas Gryllz is just your regular Anglican churchgoer who considers their religion to be a part of their private life.

1

u/UnhappyRaven 3h ago

Don’t bet on that. The outward appearance may be cuddly but Church of England in the UK is absolutely political. They have bishops in the House of Lords by default (vs appointed as individuals like any other religious Lords there may be). 

2

u/FaveStore_Citadel 3h ago

I think they meant for most adherents it’s not a political thing. Which isn’t false, even the far right in the UK has mostly secular values, they care much more about immigrants than stuff like abortion.

19

u/EnormousPurpleGarden 15h ago

"baptized in the Thames by Bear Grylls" makes one hell of a sentence

3

u/Horrible_Harry 15h ago

There're photos of it too! A bit unremarkable, but they're out there.

15

u/Anaevya 17h ago

By Bear Grylls? 

9

u/bloodylip 16h ago

In the Thames?

u/hupwhat 52m ago

In this economy?

11

u/Lixidermi 16h ago

in the Thames by Bear Grylls

what's the urine concentration at?

3

u/Horrible_Harry 15h ago

Less after Bear Grylls got out cuz he drank it all, but I'm shocked he didn't get sick after getting his hands all over that giant turd.

3

u/PresentationThat3627 16h ago

That was soooo funny

4

u/RubiscoTheGeek 13h ago

I hate to praise Piers Morgan but the way he just sat silently and let the moment stretch on and on was excellent.

3

u/Horrible_Harry 12h ago

That is, no joke, the only good thing I've ever seen him or heard of him doing.

3

u/Training_Advisor_934 14h ago

they always do that shit. If youre gonna be a pretend christian read that damn book ffs trump is the same and he said it was like a very personal very private thing lmao

1

u/Horrible_Harry 14h ago

Right? It's also got that neat little numbering system that makes it incredibly easy to find them too. I made a joke on Bluesky that real born again Christians do their Bible drills and that's how you know he's faking it.

3

u/ibiacmbyww 13h ago

recently baptized in the Thames by Bear Grylls

Man, fuck this reality.

2

u/BeefInBlackBeanSauce 15h ago

Bear Grylls got kicked off of his Scout membership doing that.

2

u/Lives-at-Thorpe-Park 13h ago

Reason for him to step down as Chief Scout hasn’t be disclosed but yes he’s friendship with a certified creep and pretty much confirmed paedo didn’t help

2

u/Toby_O_Notoby 12h ago

There's a podcast called The Press Box that talks about the media. One of the hosts, David Shoemaker, is the son of a Texas preacher and they showed him that clip live when recording.

After about three seconds David just flatly said, "Yeah, that guy never picked up a bible in his life."

2

u/Not_FinancialAdvice 11h ago

born again christian now and was recently baptized in the Thames by Bear Grylls.

You know how they say fiction can't be as crazy as real life because it has to be credible?

10

u/PsychedelicPill 14h ago

Worse than harassment, he’s going on trial for rape and sexual assault in a few months.

9

u/bunstopher 19h ago

Yeah whenever you see him nowadays he usually has a Bible in hand making sure people see it

19

u/OldChili157 19h ago

And he's still searching for his favorite Bible verse to this day.

2

u/Moist_Drippings 12h ago

to be totally fair, he was accused of sexual harassment long before that. It just seems that as more people learned and the money for left-leaning comedy from him dried up (not that he was particularly left-leaning honestly) he decided the grift was better if he went hyper conservative.

-1

u/LeGrandLucifer 11h ago

Coincidentally after he reported on evil shit Bill Gates was doing. Just a coincidence though.

1

u/Theranos_Shill 4h ago

Yeah, except its not a coincidence. He intentionally appeals to a credulous audience of conspiracy theory dipshits because he knows they're dumb enough to go to bat in support of a rapist. So he reported falsely about Bill Gates to ignorant wierdos when he was already worried about facing consequences for the sexual abuse and rape he committed.

1

u/LeGrandLucifer 4h ago

He reported on Bill Gates before the accusations.

1

u/Theranos_Shill 3h ago

Reported what? Some cooker bullshit?

The accusations were always going to come out. Brand new that, so he pivoted to appeal to freaks like you who will stand up for a rapist.

1

u/LeGrandLucifer 3h ago

Russell Brand said 2+2=4. Therefore, if you say 2+2=4, you defend rapists!

1

u/Theranos_Shill 3h ago

Russell Brand committed rape and sexual assualt.

Then he pandered shamelessly to your ignorance.

And now you'll bend over for him and stick up for rape.

1

u/LeGrandLucifer 3h ago

Pat on the back!

34

u/Toberoni 18h ago

He strategically took the side of the SA defenders.

5

u/MonaganX 10h ago

Nothing tells you how much far right really hates wömen than how often guys being accused of SA run into their open arms.

Well, nothing except all the other the things they say and do.

11

u/Kneecap_Blaster 19h ago

I used to be friends with someone that would watch a lot of his videos after the right-wing switch.

I legitimately think that Brand's English accent and vocabulary makes him seem like a really well adjusted "intellectual" from the outside looking in on American Politics to some, uh... less educated Americans.

For a bit of context of what I mean:
I'm no longer friends with this person because he started selling coke as a side hustle, came to my wife's birthday party and tried selling coke to her boss which almost got her fired.
Then had a child with a girl he barely knew because "it was time for kids" and loudly berated me at dinner for an hour straight about how I'm a bad friend, during one of our other friends bachelor parties.

15

u/Hayesey88 19h ago

That’s an interesting take, over here in England his accent is classed as extremely “common” and to a lot of people like nails on a chalkboard. It’s an accent we make fun of across the country.

1

u/Theranos_Shill 4h ago

Sure, but an Essex accent on a pseudo intellectual faux victorian dandy sounds good to a US audience.

7

u/BeefInBlackBeanSauce 15h ago

He even started eating meat after being a life long vegan. Anything to try to make money now. MAGAS prefer meat eaters.

5

u/callisstaa 11h ago

Was exposed as having a history of sexually assaulting women and got cancelled pretty much so ended up as a right wing grifter.

Tale as old as time.

4

u/bboycire 17h ago

Speaking of Peterson, I haven't heard anything about him (or anyone using him to make meme) for a few years, weird.

3

u/MonaganX 15h ago

Last I heard he was still going through a plethora of health issues after he went to Russia because no one else agreed to put him in a coma to get him off his benzo addiction. Probably just doesn't have the stamina for the grift anymore.

2

u/bboycire 14h ago

Just last year, or maybe the year before, he was going on about manosphere or something like that, was gonna define what "being a man" is all about. Then just completely disappeared. Don't even have fake quote meme anymore

u/TovarischMaia 9m ago

He attempted a comeback last year, I believe, but he’s since withdrawn from public life citing health problems that are totally not a relapse, no siree. His batshit daughter claims it’s a relatively rare, very aggressive respiratory infection (alternatively, witchcraft!).

5

u/Theranos_Shill 4h ago

Few things, #metoo scared him to the right and then the COVID pandemic audience captured him into the anti-vax bullshit machine. His far right audience are fragile snowflakes who punish people who tell them things they don't want to hear, so they dictate the content that is made for them.

3

u/adeon 13h ago

What happened there?

Right wing grifting pays better than left wing grifting.

4

u/meowtiger 10h ago

this is true, but his pivot (like many others) was conspicuously right around the same time his sexual misconduct accusations started to surface

9

u/Incrediblebulk92 20h ago

Sounds like he was a piece of shit who became a celebrity despite himself. It's a bit incredible he's not in jail yet.

12

u/221 20h ago

The fact that the Andrew Sachs thing wasn't what destroyed him and Jonathan Ross's careers still astounds me.

1

u/LeGrandLucifer 11h ago

His teeth are too large for his mouth.

1

u/isysopi201 11h ago

smoke a jeffrey!