October 11, 2020 • 26 mins
When Russell was a little boy, his Nan gave him a key to her house. What he did with it was probably not what she expected...
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
So this idea has been going around in my head
for years. My favorite conversations are when the person shares
something about themselves you don't know. And I noticed that
the objects in our lives have so much meaning when
you stop and think about them, which got me wondering.
What if some of the world's funniest and most interesting
people brought in three treasured objects that mean the most
(00:21):
to them and share the stories behind them, stories you've
never heard before.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
When you've said the idea, I thought, that's a really
good idea. Have you done many of them?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yet you're the first?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
All right, I'm the inaugural What.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
A beautiful guinea pig?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Though?
Speaker 4 (00:35):
And the first item is a beautiful guinea pig called Augustus,
long heard sexy as to day, forced to live with
a rabbit.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Why, I'm Christian O'Connell, and this is the stuff of
legends today with Russell Brand. Well, when I first met
Russell he was very different to the Russell Brand we
know today. This was what the early two thousands. He
was wild, crazy, like this super and nova and out
of control. I didn't realize at the time that he
was also an addict. And since then, what is overcome
(01:06):
and transformed is nothing sort of incredible. You don't need
me to remind you about Russell Brand. How he started
out as a stand up comedian an MTV presenter, then
breaks into Hollywood, smashes into Hollywood in a typical Russell
Brand way with forgetting Sarah Marshall and get him to
the Greek. He's written several books worldwide, sold out stand
up tours, and become a political activist. With all that
(01:29):
huge global success, there's still the sweet vulnerability to Russell
alongside all that amazing verbal dexterity. He's got a message
at the moment. He's genuinely trying to help people, and
I think that's really interesting. And just a side note,
this episode does include drug themes that might be difficult
for some of you. So here is Russell Brand and
the stories behind the three most treasured objects from his
(01:50):
life and his first one.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Their house Key to my NaN's House one four three
Lily Church Road, Dagenham, Essex, Like it's obviously someone else's
house now. I imagine I've changed it lots, if I've
got any sense, But it was a terraced house and
it always sort of smelt of nice, sort of like chips,
chips cooked in a big pan of fat, and like
(02:13):
you could like have chops there, chops and cheese and
chocolate and chips. Everything's a bit chewy, and like the
TV is always on and like it's nice. And when
Bert was alive, her second husband, he would be sat
there on the telly and we were watching things like
Saint and Greevesy.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
It was nice.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And the woman next door is called Geane.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
And then then some younger people moved in next door,
and they had a little girl called Nancy, and our
fancies Nancy, and we went off and I was little,
I was like twelve ten maybe, and my name made
these jam tarts one time, and I think I threw
them away in front of Nancy.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
The pastry is very thick. I still feel guilty about it.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
But I remember looking at that key a lot. You know,
our keys end up in a drawer or whatever. When
she died, I felt like that and that place and
that relationship represented sanctuary as often I suppose a grandparent
can you know, without the tension and friction of the
relationship with a mother or father. And she was wonderful
(03:12):
and exemplified her class and a particular time and a
set of values unconscious kindness and loving me, being kind
and compassionate, to write a.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Chapter from Thus spake Zarathustra.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Just to be nice to someone, my nan, just being
nice was what was ordinary to her. I went there
whenever I wanted, I stayed there as long as I want.
I felt sanctuary. Then when I was a little boy,
and how old how old is this object?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah? No, no, you go into Nan and feeling.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Like al ways, but I reckon I can remember feeling nervous,
like like for a brand free, And I reckon that
it would have been because my mum and dad split
up when I was quite young, when that's between six
months and a year old, and she met my nan.
She was I suppose in a sense that she held
the idea, yeah, that are it's sad, what s happening him?
She used to always say, oh, shame and shame. She
(04:04):
used to just say shame about me as an entity.
I like, but I liked it. It was sympathy, and
I think she sort of knew that was a strange
little boy. And plus she had two daughters and a son,
and she was my dad's mum and like, and she
idolized her son, Ronnie my dad, and he lost his
dad when he was very young, like seven.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
And there was it.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
And I think that that again, that class of women
had clearly this attitude of sort of reverence to male
old fashioned attitude in fact. But how it came across
was real love, you know, like for me, real love.
So from when I was a little more about free
and then becoming a little drug addict and stuff and
smoking weed in the house and then doing coke in
(04:45):
her house and all that kind of stuff, and get
taking it, like taking her pension book and claiming her
pension down the post office with her permission and then
keeping it. Give me a little bit of it though,
wouldn't she Well, you'll get something then, yes, I'll try
to ensure you're taking care.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Of So is true then that knew about what you
were up to.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Yeah, she did, because she was like, I've got older
cousins and she doesn't didn't approve of it at all,
Like even when it was just weed, she says, no,
we shouldn't be doing that, Rustle, it would lead to
worse things. But like you know, and she was right,
as it turned out, it did lead to her things
but she was their love enshrined all beyond sort of judgment.
She's not a person that would ever do that tough
(05:24):
love of like, well, I'm going to have to put
your arms them so you learn some of life's tough lessons. Now.
She would just continue to love until you're dead. She's
like any sort of grandparent. Like there's sort of myths
around her. There's a little blackbird that she used to
feed that would come into her garden and sort of
other people's cats, and if you let your dog go
around there, she'd ruin that dog by giving it.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Food that you should give to humans.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
And humans she would give enough food for five humans,
you know, everything, just giving.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Nurture, I love, give I love.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Was she a working class now?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
She was very much.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, it's funny how well working class now is almost
derided the scene as some kind of lump and mats,
you know, whereas I had a working class mum and
dad and working class grandparents, and I have very very
similar memories actually to my nan and granddad, and what
they were absolutely represented to me. And it wasn't until
you started talking about it. I thought about how I
always go around every single weekend sit there for hours
(06:18):
on a Saturday afternoon, just watching Grandstand. Do you remember
before the football came on with my granddad. He hardly
spoke because he was Irish, but very kind of deferential.
There was pictures of Jesus everywhere there. But I always
felt very very safe. You're right, because they're outside the
family circle and all those tensions and dynamics that you're
not even aware of as a kid.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
It's just calm there.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
They just want to know you had your own key.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
I didn't get out till I was older, and she
might not even have known I had it still, so
he stole it a little leather fob and some sort
of blue.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Shoe in a bar of soap. Is that what happened?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I have done things with keys.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I did once when I lived with the next girlfriend
when I was about twenty, when she eventually and wisely
kicked me out of the house. Kept took a set
of keys, copied set of keys, returned down one, and
then would just go back to the house from time
to time and commit what I believe it's called robbery
or burglary.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, so that was like a peculiar period.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
But she and my grandmother, Yeah, and that key, I
suppose represents and represented and represents you know that there
is safety, there is sort of a warmth and care
and you know, so that that object has significance.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
This is stuff of legends today with Russell Brand. After
the door key to his NaN's house, I was keen
to learn about his next treasured object.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Where do we go now?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
My dad bought me this bike, like it was a
red Man bick. It was good.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Once in a while, my dad, he would come up
trumps with a flash gift. This mountain bike was very
good and it had a nice saddle with Gail in
it and like it had maybe twenty gears or whatever.
I can't remember the name of it, but it was
you know, there was a period do you remember that
when you were TEENAGEVMX, Yeah, there's supposed BMX mountain bike
phase where it's important, Like there's types of mountain bike names.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That are good, and this was one of them.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
But all of that files not found are raised deleted
all of that. But it was a red bike. It
was a beautiful bicycle. And when I left home quite
I left home at sixteen and that bike was still
at the house and then sort of it would have
been the first year of leaving home living with these
lads in Bermondsey Street in southeast London and Burmesey Street.
Now it's very cool and lovely, but then it was
(08:29):
just like there was the stage newspaper and it was
you know, Bermondsey is sort of a remains to a degree,
a part of London that's got a certain kind of intensity,
definitely like a Bermonsey.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Then it was a different kind of London.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
This is like twenty five, twenty six, twenty eight years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It was a long time ago now.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
And when I first started to take drugs, and like
I got into it straight away, like I sort of
like from the first time I smoked weed, I just
did it all the time, and every single new drug
I was offered, I just enthusiastically embraced it.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
And nothing more than.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
What did it give you that straightaway agecause a lot
of people experiment when they're younger. But the way you
said you took to it straightaway, did it give you
what you were looking for, some form of escapism to
escape what was going on?
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I felt like it was. I suppose it in a sense.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
It did the same thing as my grandmother provided a
kind of safety and warmth. Even though there is a
great deea of anxiety and paranoia and dread involved in
drug use, sometimes at least it's more controllable than the
continual chaos of ordinary reality, the continual chaos of relationships
with human beings who can't be depended upon. Often so
(09:31):
like I suppose for me, even from smoking weed onwards
and smoking hashes was very prevalent.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
When I was, you know, first started smoking stuff, I.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Felt like, ah, this is a sort of safe, reliable
technique for managing my feelings and emotions, quietening the voices.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
See quite in the voice of numbing it all down
and self medicating.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, and then acid.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
The first time I did it, I was sort of
like The Doors was a big movie at that time,
and I loved Jim Morrison and all that.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I got so into to it. Me and this lad.
I don't know if I should be naming him. Really,
we didn't do anything that bad.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
No surprises. We are bleeping out the name, but it's
not a swear word. It's actually a real person.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
We did that in together, and I was again, I
was only when I think about it now, at sixteen.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
That was a little boy.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Imagine you know you if you talk to sixteen or
the actual children, aren't they they.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Are They're tiny, tiny, little growing brains.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Don't dissolve the ego when you're building the ego.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Don't dissolve your understanding of reality when you don't even
actually understand reality.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I've got to break this down.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
What I don't know the build coming up then fort house,
look at the state of it. If not, you don't
even that's not how you mix and men, where's the foundation?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So you would drop an accid at sixteen?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, and like yeah, which you know, like a lot
of people. I remember people do it by school with
thirteen or forty.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Yes, the lads there is always that, those lads that
the teachers were scared of.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
They're always the ones that hit puberty at like twelve
or thirty, like a Madam Massive Adams, Apple.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Jabie Dawkins.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So what about the bike then, so let's go back
to the bike.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So what happened was the bike to go and get drugs?
Or yes I didn't.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
I got this sheet of acid like you know, that's
which is how it was. It came in those days,
and I really loved it and it led to got
a lot of problem problems actually because like another time,
like where they tricked the lads I lived with, because
I was like the youngest.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
I was sixteen.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
They were all eighteen and they might as well have
been thirty five. They just seem so worldly. They all
pretended that they'd done some acid because we each had some,
but they none of them had and I did. So
then those like over the c as I was coming
up on acid, they were a sort of looking at
each other and laughing and what was going on and
none of us did any.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Terrifying.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
It was very terrifying, especially as I'm a man who
in his forties can't cope in a flotation take acid
when I'm sixteen and then so but like anyway, I
couldn't pay for that acid.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
It wouldn't have been much, and i've been fifty quid
or something. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
But like I said to G, I'll just go back
to grays in Essex and I'll get my bike and
then you can give me like some sheets of acid
and I'll swap my bike for it. So we did
some acid and then got the train from Fenshurt Street back.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
To my mom's house.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
In grays Essex, and my mum had people over Jan
and Derek and they were having like dinner on these
but the acid is coming on. And my mom and dad,
my mom and their boyfriend, boyfriend, Colin perhaps in Colin
had Jan and Derek round, right, and that they've got
these new dinner plates.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
They had the sort of mark suspenses, as I believe,
but they had like this brown pattern in the middle, right.
But they were really similar to the plates that we
used to add, but a bit different. And I was like,
these plates, what's going on with these plates?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
He was like a wrep from an campra lovely to me.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
How's it going on?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
You can angle acid easily? Yeah, nice to meet.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
About the plates.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
I'm freaking out about the plates. He didn't give about
the plates different. That's not the right pan. What's happening
to reality? It's all crumbling apart.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I know. We should have built an ego before I
dismantled it. And then I start like when I went
to get.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
The bicycle, I started crying because I thought, oh, this
is a symbol of my childhood and I'm exchanging.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
And all that kind of altered stage.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Because of it.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Yeah, I was experiencing life on a mythic level, a.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Strange jack and the bean stare that you were trading.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Exactly, It felt like I could see the deep, essential
archetypal meanings that looks behind the apparently mundane exchanges of
every day.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
What are the energies that inform the decisions that we make?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
So I was very upset about changing this, like swapping
this bicycle for drugs. I was upset and that, and
like curiously, on this trip, I made the decision that
I was going to go to drama school.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
I said, I thought, I've got a train, I've got
trained to become an actor.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
That's what I've got to do. That previously at school
as a teenager.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I've done.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
I'd had already been to Italian CONTI for you, which
is a bit more stage schooling that I made a
decision to go to. I'm going to audition for a
proper drums or serious ones where you cry and get naked.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And that's exactly what they did do a drama center.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
That's a serious place, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
It's a theme that I've continued throughout my life. And
so like I got that, like I got that vicecore
and I told I've reevaluated my life. He goes, Russell,
you do not re evaluate your life on a trip
like he had a lot of.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It was a real sort of intense sirpa of a person.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
With clear views of what should be done and what
shouldn't be done, and in all veins, he was much
better equipped to handle the mad undulation and vicissitudes of
life on acid. He handled it with a plom like
I think my mum would have.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
No.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I had no idea that he was on drugs with me.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
I was like a sort of a gush short film
made by the government about a little pointing drugs.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Russell's been taking acid. Russell's life was in front of him.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
But this is his childhood bike.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
He's for drugs like a leaflet.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Russell, don't be a nug.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
This is the stuff of legends with Russell Brand's most
treasured objects. We've heard about his NaN's housekey, the red bike,
and now the last sweld. What is his final object?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, third object.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
It's wrong to OBJECTI VI because he's a living entity,
a feline mammal.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Morrissey my cat.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
He's a black and white cat, like a little gentleman.
He's been immortalized by the beloved TV comic nol Fielding
who stayed with me for a little while and painted Morrissey.
And so a few people have painted Morrissey. He's like
quite a well respected cat.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
He was a real.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Little killer when he was younger, when we lived in
Gospel Oak. And so I'm going to have my cat
Morrissey because he's sort of prevalent in my life at
the moment, and like when he got ill, lately he's
still currently a lie thankfully. You know, they have this
totemic power pets, don't they They become again. I suppose,
like with my grandmother, I suppose these objects, and I
suppose the reason that this, I think is a great
(16:11):
idea of a podcast is we imbue objects with all
manner of qualities. We need to have an idea of
ceremony because otherwise the unseen invisible world has is impermanent
and inaccessible, and we feel so remote here.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So unless objects start.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
To signify something, start to mean something, and they do.
Throughout most religious faiths and even in secular faiths, there
are sort of sacred objects that mace in the houses
of Parliament. Objects continually imbued. There's things you just like
you know, like you know, even in a sort of
secular nation like Britain, if someone desecrates that cenotaph, people like,
(16:47):
don't Mata's just an object.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
People are like, wait, that's the war dead. It's true.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, you're right, yeah, there's it's front page news when
them top gear ads were doing doughnuts around it whatever,
which you know.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Yeah, So because we acknowledge that there is meaning, the
objects are imviewed with meaning there Morrissey are like, I
got that cat when I was twenty seven years old,
when I just was clear just cleaned from drugs.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
I was young, I was going to have a young woman.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
She lived on Broadwater Farm Estate, Tottenham, and she bought
me a kitten as a pet on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And I really wanted a cat.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
You know, when you first clean from drugs, it's sort
of nice to have something like to love and to
be Then he was such a cute little kitten, Morrissey,
And you know, he was sort of and because my
life has changed a lot, you know, now married and
i have two kids, and I've lived in America and
I've been through other marriages and other relationships. This cat's
lived in I think I counted up once that he'd
lived in like ten or twelve hourses, like you know,
(17:47):
and he's been back and forth to Los Angeles. This
cat and I lived a very What do I want
to say?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
So? Do you always leave the relationship with the cat?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Has anyone ever said, oh no, I've got to touch
that cat now, Russell, I want the cat, although always.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Said a minute, Christian, you can't switch owners like I've
gone into the cat relationship with the cat. You can't
say I have developed a great affinity with his cat.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
It's mine now. You can't.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
When you go, I'm leaving that sick mars come with
me and never a question. Right a cat sometimes they
have conflicting loyalties very easily Whoever's going to feed them?
Speaker 4 (18:22):
I think Morrissey is a disloyal cat, like all cats, Yes,
no question, but I'm sure if I you know, he
would eat me if I died. He's tried eating bits
of me when I've just been sat steel like.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
But like.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
One relationship I had with someone I was very much
in love with. We had like like she had a
German shepherd, white German shepherd, but she had that before me.
And in fact she it was a kid's dog. But
that dog loved me like we bonded me in that dog.
And I didn't even really try to ticularly hard in
the way that I often do to make dogs or
children love me in order to seem like I'm a
really great guy. I didn't make any effort at all,
(18:58):
and the dog just loving him when that relationship, like,
you know, I can come to terms with human relationships
not working. I've got enough experience of it. Yeah, like
letting go of that dog, Oh my god, I had
to sort of just shut it in a room in
my mind and never go in there again. I can
see pictures of that dog now, like it was set off. Yeah,
Like because he came on Jonathan Ross with me. I
(19:19):
remember that we were promoting a film together. It was
his film, actually, I just read along for the ride,
like and yeah, he was such a good dog. Yeah,
I remember, just came out and bounded and sat on
the sofa, not like my dog Bear now, who's also
a German shepherd dog, you know, in a sense symbolically
to represent I living domesticity, I'm a family man with
a family dog. That dog's got all the attributes and
(19:40):
traits that I had when I.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Was about twenty.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
It's just the psychopath lunatic dog that I spent all
my time negotiating with and send in to high class trying.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
To choose a German Shepherd. I've got a German Shepherd.
They're great dogs.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I like my dad had one, right.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I always wanted one as a kid. I had a
little spirits here. Yeah, brought her out. They'd be part
of the family. The kid said one thing, Okay, we're
going to move to Australia. Really excited Nietzsche the shop
that she has to come with us. I was like, yeah,
they wanted that little bit of comfort in a crazy
new life.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
That was really important.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
They want to come home from new schools, experience what
they've experienced, and they just want to know their dog
was still going to be there. And they every sense
of animals, the big dogs, German Shepherd. I'm surprised you
went for a dog like that.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I love them.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
They're great, aren't they.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Yeah they're Yeah, they're a lovely bride. I think they
look like a proper dog. He's a laugh you know.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Does she also have eyebrows? Mine has eyebrows. I find
it a lot easier to communicate with her.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Yeah, my boy bear, He's like, there's a man looking
at you.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Hello, you look back on the acid.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Taken a little bit to get through this interview.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
I'm like, but he he's like when I came back,
I went back to England to see Morrissey because he
was like, you know, I have the good fortune of
being friends with nol Fitzpatrick, supervet Off the Telly who's
a brilliant, brilliant and when anything happens to the animal,
seems that something's always happening into the bloody animals, Like
I like call him up and go can need help? Right,
(21:04):
And so he took our cat, Morrisy because Morrissey was
having kidney failure and one of his colleagues they're operated
and fitted a stint. Morris he's like sixteen years old,
you know, but they don't see it.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
In that way.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
They don't go like they've treated the same like a
human and go, wow, he's had a good life, fucking
like no it s You're like you love him, like
you we'll do everything that we can. Yeah, and like
so we like so we've you know, had an operation
and I like me and my wife talks about it
and goes, I think I have to go back, you know,
this operation.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
It's going to be really sort of difficult for him.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
And I feel like out of honor, like I have
to acknowledge that this cat means a lot to me.
And he reaches back into a time in my life
where I had nothing. I lived in a like a
not even one bedroom flat, one room flat when I
got that cat.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
And he's been for all of this stuff, He's witnessed
all of these things. He's been present for all of this, and.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Now I feel like he's somehow furried me to being
a father with two children, Like so now, thank you.
So now that he's sick, I feel like you can't,
like you have to live with honor.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
And doesn't amazing how you just come out of therapy.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
You're in a very raw what I can only guess,
and you know, I've been not speaking for you, but
kind of very embryonic raw.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Who am I now? Who am I going to be?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
And you get this lovely little cat that you've got
to care for, so you caring for yourself as well,
But that's beautiful. Hell, caring for the cat must have
a sense of caring for yourself as well.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, that's right, and it's sort of like a new start.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
It's nice to it's fresh. Yeah, we all escape from
sort of childhood. I suppose a lot of like I
think addiction is an attempt to sort of get a
control of your life curiously, even though it is a
very destructive impulse. So post addiction, when you're entering into
the world that's really uncertain, you're right, it is very
reassuring and beautiful to have a relationship that is reliable,
(22:47):
or a relationship with an animal, you know, and he
sort of really fulfilled that function. It was sad to
go see him the other day and how they have
to shave him up all dramatically, and he's got drips
in him and all this kind of stuff. But you
see the spirit in them, you know, these animals, you
know what life wants to carry on.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
There is this will to live, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
And how is Mole's now? Can we get an update?
Speaker 4 (23:08):
He's doing pretty good, that there's some sort of presence
of there's a word that sounds a bit like creatins
or something, which means that the amount of that is
a way of evaluating how well.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
The kidney is functioning.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
It's not dropped as much as they would have liked.
And the fact is is that kidney failure is a
prominent thing for older cats anyway. So like, but he's
improving and he's doing he's doing all right, you know, thankfully.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
What moment in your life has Morrissey witnessed that no
one else has seen and even knows about.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I don't know about that no one else has seen,
but like he's certainly, I mean, he's just been there
for sixteen years. Like he's been present in a lot
of interesting situations I've seen. Like I remember when I
first saw Morrissey with famous people, thinking, Wow, there's Morrissey
on a famous person's legs, Like it was sort of
(23:56):
really like extraordinary, like reality, he's gone all.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Broke and now that's the cat Morrissey.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Also even when I do remember when I interviewed ed
Milliban before the election fifteen, I've got footage of made
Millivan coming up the stairs and Morrissey just come through
this mug sort of trapes him by him. So he's
been there and he's been there for everything. He's just
a cat and he doesn't, you know, like any cat
care about none of it.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
I feel like one day he's going to have his
sort of show bus. He's going to set his story
behind your back about my life with Russell Brand.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And he's got some good yarns that cat. He's been
present for some interesting moments.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Big thanks to today's legend, Russell Brand. When I asked
Russell to do this podcast, he had this wonderful phrase,
as Russell would objects hum with meaning it was a
genuine joint to chat with him and to find out more.
And it's a chat made even more special because since
we spoke, sadly, Russell's cat, Morrissey, is no longer with us. However,
I still think it will go down as one of
(24:57):
Russell's greatest loves of his life many loves. We had
this big hug afterwards, and I thanked him for being
so open and honest. Russell sometimes strikes me you'll probably
like this too. He's almost like superhuman in a shimmering
ultra confidence and speed of thought. But this chat reminded
me of the sweet tenderness that lies within him and
all of us.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I hope you enjoyed it too.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
If this episode has brought up anything tricky for you,
please get in touch with Beyond Blue in Australia at
beyond blue dot org dot au.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
They do amazing work.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
If you're elsewhere in the world, you can find support
at checkpoint org dot com slash global. Make sure you
don't miss any of our upcoming legends. Follow the show
for free on iHeartRadio or whatever podcast app you're listening
to me on. I'm Christian O'Connell and until next time,
this is the stuff of legends.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
That was great, Thank you so much, Lovely Spilmising. I
found it was so interesting.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I think it's really good.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
I'd be really interesting, sir, Oh, listen to this podcast
is a sort of thing of life. I like you're
doing interviews or a laugh, but you're serious and getting
into people you always have done.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I'll be like, I'm like hearing that. I want to
find out answers. I want to know what. Do you
know that I might be going to make sense?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah, yeah, you know
Speaker 3 (26:17):
H
So this idea has been going around in my head
for years. My favorite conversations are when the person shares
something about themselves you don't know. And I noticed that
the objects in our lives have so much meaning when
you stop and think about them, which got me wondering.
What if some of the world's funniest and most interesting
people brought in three treasured objects that mean the most
(00:21):
to them and share the stories behind them, stories you've
never heard before.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
When you've said the idea, I thought, that's a really
good idea. Have you done many of them?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yet you're the first?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
All right, I'm the inaugural What.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
A beautiful guinea pig?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Though?
Speaker 4 (00:35):
And the first item is a beautiful guinea pig called Augustus,
long heard sexy as to day, forced to live with
a rabbit.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Why, I'm Christian O'Connell, and this is the stuff of
legends today with Russell Brand. Well, when I first met
Russell he was very different to the Russell Brand we
know today. This was what the early two thousands. He
was wild, crazy, like this super and nova and out
of control. I didn't realize at the time that he
was also an addict. And since then, what is overcome
(01:06):
and transformed is nothing sort of incredible. You don't need
me to remind you about Russell Brand. How he started
out as a stand up comedian an MTV presenter, then
breaks into Hollywood, smashes into Hollywood in a typical Russell
Brand way with forgetting Sarah Marshall and get him to
the Greek. He's written several books worldwide, sold out stand
up tours, and become a political activist. With all that
(01:29):
huge global success, there's still the sweet vulnerability to Russell
alongside all that amazing verbal dexterity. He's got a message
at the moment. He's genuinely trying to help people, and
I think that's really interesting. And just a side note,
this episode does include drug themes that might be difficult
for some of you. So here is Russell Brand and
the stories behind the three most treasured objects from his
(01:50):
life and his first one.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Their house Key to my NaN's House one four three
Lily Church Road, Dagenham, Essex, Like it's obviously someone else's
house now. I imagine I've changed it lots, if I've
got any sense, But it was a terraced house and
it always sort of smelt of nice, sort of like chips,
chips cooked in a big pan of fat, and like
(02:13):
you could like have chops there, chops and cheese and
chocolate and chips. Everything's a bit chewy, and like the
TV is always on and like it's nice. And when
Bert was alive, her second husband, he would be sat
there on the telly and we were watching things like
Saint and Greevesy.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
It was nice.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And the woman next door is called Geane.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
And then then some younger people moved in next door,
and they had a little girl called Nancy, and our
fancies Nancy, and we went off and I was little,
I was like twelve ten maybe, and my name made
these jam tarts one time, and I think I threw
them away in front of Nancy.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
The pastry is very thick. I still feel guilty about it.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
But I remember looking at that key a lot. You know,
our keys end up in a drawer or whatever. When
she died, I felt like that and that place and
that relationship represented sanctuary as often I suppose a grandparent
can you know, without the tension and friction of the
relationship with a mother or father. And she was wonderful
(03:12):
and exemplified her class and a particular time and a
set of values unconscious kindness and loving me, being kind
and compassionate, to write a.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Chapter from Thus spake Zarathustra.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Just to be nice to someone, my nan, just being
nice was what was ordinary to her. I went there
whenever I wanted, I stayed there as long as I want.
I felt sanctuary. Then when I was a little boy,
and how old how old is this object?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah? No, no, you go into Nan and feeling.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Like al ways, but I reckon I can remember feeling nervous,
like like for a brand free, And I reckon that
it would have been because my mum and dad split
up when I was quite young, when that's between six
months and a year old, and she met my nan.
She was I suppose in a sense that she held
the idea, yeah, that are it's sad, what s happening him?
She used to always say, oh, shame and shame. She
(04:04):
used to just say shame about me as an entity.
I like, but I liked it. It was sympathy, and
I think she sort of knew that was a strange
little boy. And plus she had two daughters and a son,
and she was my dad's mum and like, and she
idolized her son, Ronnie my dad, and he lost his
dad when he was very young, like seven.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
And there was it.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
And I think that that again, that class of women
had clearly this attitude of sort of reverence to male
old fashioned attitude in fact. But how it came across
was real love, you know, like for me, real love.
So from when I was a little more about free
and then becoming a little drug addict and stuff and
smoking weed in the house and then doing coke in
(04:45):
her house and all that kind of stuff, and get
taking it, like taking her pension book and claiming her
pension down the post office with her permission and then
keeping it. Give me a little bit of it though,
wouldn't she Well, you'll get something then, yes, I'll try
to ensure you're taking care.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Of So is true then that knew about what you
were up to.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Yeah, she did, because she was like, I've got older
cousins and she doesn't didn't approve of it at all,
Like even when it was just weed, she says, no,
we shouldn't be doing that, Rustle, it would lead to
worse things. But like you know, and she was right,
as it turned out, it did lead to her things
but she was their love enshrined all beyond sort of judgment.
She's not a person that would ever do that tough
(05:24):
love of like, well, I'm going to have to put
your arms them so you learn some of life's tough lessons. Now.
She would just continue to love until you're dead. She's
like any sort of grandparent. Like there's sort of myths
around her. There's a little blackbird that she used to
feed that would come into her garden and sort of
other people's cats, and if you let your dog go
around there, she'd ruin that dog by giving it.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Food that you should give to humans.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
And humans she would give enough food for five humans,
you know, everything, just giving.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Nurture, I love, give I love.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Was she a working class now?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
She was very much.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, it's funny how well working class now is almost
derided the scene as some kind of lump and mats,
you know, whereas I had a working class mum and
dad and working class grandparents, and I have very very
similar memories actually to my nan and granddad, and what
they were absolutely represented to me. And it wasn't until
you started talking about it. I thought about how I
always go around every single weekend sit there for hours
(06:18):
on a Saturday afternoon, just watching Grandstand. Do you remember
before the football came on with my granddad. He hardly
spoke because he was Irish, but very kind of deferential.
There was pictures of Jesus everywhere there. But I always
felt very very safe. You're right, because they're outside the
family circle and all those tensions and dynamics that you're
not even aware of as a kid.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
It's just calm there.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
They just want to know you had your own key.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
I didn't get out till I was older, and she
might not even have known I had it still, so
he stole it a little leather fob and some sort
of blue.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Shoe in a bar of soap. Is that what happened?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I have done things with keys.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I did once when I lived with the next girlfriend
when I was about twenty, when she eventually and wisely
kicked me out of the house. Kept took a set
of keys, copied set of keys, returned down one, and
then would just go back to the house from time
to time and commit what I believe it's called robbery
or burglary.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, so that was like a peculiar period.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
But she and my grandmother, Yeah, and that key, I
suppose represents and represented and represents you know that there
is safety, there is sort of a warmth and care
and you know, so that that object has significance.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
This is stuff of legends today with Russell Brand. After
the door key to his NaN's house, I was keen
to learn about his next treasured object.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Where do we go now?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
My dad bought me this bike, like it was a
red Man bick. It was good.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Once in a while, my dad, he would come up
trumps with a flash gift. This mountain bike was very
good and it had a nice saddle with Gail in
it and like it had maybe twenty gears or whatever.
I can't remember the name of it, but it was
you know, there was a period do you remember that
when you were TEENAGEVMX, Yeah, there's supposed BMX mountain bike
phase where it's important, Like there's types of mountain bike names.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That are good, and this was one of them.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
But all of that files not found are raised deleted
all of that. But it was a red bike. It
was a beautiful bicycle. And when I left home quite
I left home at sixteen and that bike was still
at the house and then sort of it would have
been the first year of leaving home living with these
lads in Bermondsey Street in southeast London and Burmesey Street.
Now it's very cool and lovely, but then it was
(08:29):
just like there was the stage newspaper and it was
you know, Bermondsey is sort of a remains to a degree,
a part of London that's got a certain kind of intensity,
definitely like a Bermonsey.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Then it was a different kind of London.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
This is like twenty five, twenty six, twenty eight years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It was a long time ago now.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
And when I first started to take drugs, and like
I got into it straight away, like I sort of
like from the first time I smoked weed, I just
did it all the time, and every single new drug
I was offered, I just enthusiastically embraced it.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
And nothing more than.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
What did it give you that straightaway agecause a lot
of people experiment when they're younger. But the way you
said you took to it straightaway, did it give you
what you were looking for, some form of escapism to
escape what was going on?
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I felt like it was. I suppose it in a sense.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
It did the same thing as my grandmother provided a
kind of safety and warmth. Even though there is a
great deea of anxiety and paranoia and dread involved in
drug use, sometimes at least it's more controllable than the
continual chaos of ordinary reality, the continual chaos of relationships
with human beings who can't be depended upon. Often so
(09:31):
like I suppose for me, even from smoking weed onwards
and smoking hashes was very prevalent.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
When I was, you know, first started smoking stuff, I.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Felt like, ah, this is a sort of safe, reliable
technique for managing my feelings and emotions, quietening the voices.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
See quite in the voice of numbing it all down
and self medicating.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, and then acid.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
The first time I did it, I was sort of
like The Doors was a big movie at that time,
and I loved Jim Morrison and all that.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I got so into to it. Me and this lad.
I don't know if I should be naming him. Really,
we didn't do anything that bad.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
No surprises. We are bleeping out the name, but it's
not a swear word. It's actually a real person.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
We did that in together, and I was again, I
was only when I think about it now, at sixteen.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
That was a little boy.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Imagine you know you if you talk to sixteen or
the actual children, aren't they they.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Are They're tiny, tiny, little growing brains.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Don't dissolve the ego when you're building the ego.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Don't dissolve your understanding of reality when you don't even
actually understand reality.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I've got to break this down.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
What I don't know the build coming up then fort house,
look at the state of it. If not, you don't
even that's not how you mix and men, where's the foundation?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So you would drop an accid at sixteen?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, and like yeah, which you know, like a lot
of people. I remember people do it by school with
thirteen or forty.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Yes, the lads there is always that, those lads that
the teachers were scared of.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
They're always the ones that hit puberty at like twelve
or thirty, like a Madam Massive Adams, Apple.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Jabie Dawkins.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So what about the bike then, so let's go back
to the bike.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So what happened was the bike to go and get drugs?
Or yes I didn't.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
I got this sheet of acid like you know, that's
which is how it was. It came in those days,
and I really loved it and it led to got
a lot of problem problems actually because like another time,
like where they tricked the lads I lived with, because
I was like the youngest.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
I was sixteen.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
They were all eighteen and they might as well have
been thirty five. They just seem so worldly. They all
pretended that they'd done some acid because we each had some,
but they none of them had and I did. So
then those like over the c as I was coming
up on acid, they were a sort of looking at
each other and laughing and what was going on and
none of us did any.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Terrifying.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
It was very terrifying, especially as I'm a man who
in his forties can't cope in a flotation take acid
when I'm sixteen and then so but like anyway, I
couldn't pay for that acid.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
It wouldn't have been much, and i've been fifty quid
or something. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
But like I said to G, I'll just go back
to grays in Essex and I'll get my bike and
then you can give me like some sheets of acid
and I'll swap my bike for it. So we did
some acid and then got the train from Fenshurt Street back.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
To my mom's house.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
In grays Essex, and my mum had people over Jan
and Derek and they were having like dinner on these
but the acid is coming on. And my mom and dad,
my mom and their boyfriend, boyfriend, Colin perhaps in Colin
had Jan and Derek round, right, and that they've got
these new dinner plates.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
They had the sort of mark suspenses, as I believe,
but they had like this brown pattern in the middle, right.
But they were really similar to the plates that we
used to add, but a bit different. And I was like,
these plates, what's going on with these plates?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
He was like a wrep from an campra lovely to me.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
How's it going on?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
You can angle acid easily? Yeah, nice to meet.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
About the plates.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
I'm freaking out about the plates. He didn't give about
the plates different. That's not the right pan. What's happening
to reality? It's all crumbling apart.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I know. We should have built an ego before I
dismantled it. And then I start like when I went
to get.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
The bicycle, I started crying because I thought, oh, this
is a symbol of my childhood and I'm exchanging.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
And all that kind of altered stage.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Because of it.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Yeah, I was experiencing life on a mythic level, a.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Strange jack and the bean stare that you were trading.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Exactly, It felt like I could see the deep, essential
archetypal meanings that looks behind the apparently mundane exchanges of
every day.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
What are the energies that inform the decisions that we make?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
So I was very upset about changing this, like swapping
this bicycle for drugs. I was upset and that, and
like curiously, on this trip, I made the decision that
I was going to go to drama school.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
I said, I thought, I've got a train, I've got
trained to become an actor.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
That's what I've got to do. That previously at school
as a teenager.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I've done.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
I'd had already been to Italian CONTI for you, which
is a bit more stage schooling that I made a
decision to go to. I'm going to audition for a
proper drums or serious ones where you cry and get naked.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And that's exactly what they did do a drama center.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
That's a serious place, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
It's a theme that I've continued throughout my life. And
so like I got that, like I got that vicecore
and I told I've reevaluated my life. He goes, Russell,
you do not re evaluate your life on a trip
like he had a lot of.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It was a real sort of intense sirpa of a person.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
With clear views of what should be done and what
shouldn't be done, and in all veins, he was much
better equipped to handle the mad undulation and vicissitudes of
life on acid. He handled it with a plom like
I think my mum would have.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
No.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I had no idea that he was on drugs with me.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
I was like a sort of a gush short film
made by the government about a little pointing drugs.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Russell's been taking acid. Russell's life was in front of him.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
But this is his childhood bike.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
He's for drugs like a leaflet.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Russell, don't be a nug.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
This is the stuff of legends with Russell Brand's most
treasured objects. We've heard about his NaN's housekey, the red bike,
and now the last sweld. What is his final object?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, third object.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
It's wrong to OBJECTI VI because he's a living entity,
a feline mammal.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Morrissey my cat.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
He's a black and white cat, like a little gentleman.
He's been immortalized by the beloved TV comic nol Fielding
who stayed with me for a little while and painted Morrissey.
And so a few people have painted Morrissey. He's like
quite a well respected cat.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
He was a real.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Little killer when he was younger, when we lived in
Gospel Oak. And so I'm going to have my cat
Morrissey because he's sort of prevalent in my life at
the moment, and like when he got ill, lately he's
still currently a lie thankfully. You know, they have this
totemic power pets, don't they They become again. I suppose,
like with my grandmother, I suppose these objects, and I
suppose the reason that this, I think is a great
(16:11):
idea of a podcast is we imbue objects with all
manner of qualities. We need to have an idea of
ceremony because otherwise the unseen invisible world has is impermanent
and inaccessible, and we feel so remote here.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So unless objects start.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
To signify something, start to mean something, and they do.
Throughout most religious faiths and even in secular faiths, there
are sort of sacred objects that mace in the houses
of Parliament. Objects continually imbued. There's things you just like
you know, like you know, even in a sort of
secular nation like Britain, if someone desecrates that cenotaph, people like,
(16:47):
don't Mata's just an object.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
People are like, wait, that's the war dead. It's true.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, you're right, yeah, there's it's front page news when
them top gear ads were doing doughnuts around it whatever,
which you know.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Yeah, So because we acknowledge that there is meaning, the
objects are imviewed with meaning there Morrissey are like, I
got that cat when I was twenty seven years old,
when I just was clear just cleaned from drugs.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
I was young, I was going to have a young woman.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
She lived on Broadwater Farm Estate, Tottenham, and she bought
me a kitten as a pet on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And I really wanted a cat.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
You know, when you first clean from drugs, it's sort
of nice to have something like to love and to
be Then he was such a cute little kitten, Morrissey,
And you know, he was sort of and because my
life has changed a lot, you know, now married and
i have two kids, and I've lived in America and
I've been through other marriages and other relationships. This cat's
lived in I think I counted up once that he'd
lived in like ten or twelve hourses, like you know,
(17:47):
and he's been back and forth to Los Angeles. This
cat and I lived a very What do I want
to say?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
So? Do you always leave the relationship with the cat?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Has anyone ever said, oh no, I've got to touch
that cat now, Russell, I want the cat, although always.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Said a minute, Christian, you can't switch owners like I've
gone into the cat relationship with the cat. You can't
say I have developed a great affinity with his cat.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
It's mine now. You can't.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
When you go, I'm leaving that sick mars come with
me and never a question. Right a cat sometimes they
have conflicting loyalties very easily Whoever's going to feed them?
Speaker 4 (18:22):
I think Morrissey is a disloyal cat, like all cats, Yes,
no question, but I'm sure if I you know, he
would eat me if I died. He's tried eating bits
of me when I've just been sat steel like.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
But like.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
One relationship I had with someone I was very much
in love with. We had like like she had a
German shepherd, white German shepherd, but she had that before me.
And in fact she it was a kid's dog. But
that dog loved me like we bonded me in that dog.
And I didn't even really try to ticularly hard in
the way that I often do to make dogs or
children love me in order to seem like I'm a
really great guy. I didn't make any effort at all,
(18:58):
and the dog just loving him when that relationship, like,
you know, I can come to terms with human relationships
not working. I've got enough experience of it. Yeah, like
letting go of that dog, Oh my god, I had
to sort of just shut it in a room in
my mind and never go in there again. I can
see pictures of that dog now, like it was set off. Yeah,
Like because he came on Jonathan Ross with me. I
(19:19):
remember that we were promoting a film together. It was
his film, actually, I just read along for the ride,
like and yeah, he was such a good dog. Yeah,
I remember, just came out and bounded and sat on
the sofa, not like my dog Bear now, who's also
a German shepherd dog, you know, in a sense symbolically
to represent I living domesticity, I'm a family man with
a family dog. That dog's got all the attributes and
(19:40):
traits that I had when I.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Was about twenty.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
It's just the psychopath lunatic dog that I spent all
my time negotiating with and send in to high class trying.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
To choose a German Shepherd. I've got a German Shepherd.
They're great dogs.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I like my dad had one, right.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I always wanted one as a kid. I had a
little spirits here. Yeah, brought her out. They'd be part
of the family. The kid said one thing, Okay, we're
going to move to Australia. Really excited Nietzsche the shop
that she has to come with us. I was like, yeah,
they wanted that little bit of comfort in a crazy
new life.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
That was really important.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
They want to come home from new schools, experience what
they've experienced, and they just want to know their dog
was still going to be there. And they every sense
of animals, the big dogs, German Shepherd. I'm surprised you
went for a dog like that.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I love them.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
They're great, aren't they.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Yeah they're Yeah, they're a lovely bride. I think they
look like a proper dog. He's a laugh you know.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Does she also have eyebrows? Mine has eyebrows. I find
it a lot easier to communicate with her.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Yeah, my boy bear, He's like, there's a man looking
at you.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Hello, you look back on the acid.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Taken a little bit to get through this interview.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
I'm like, but he he's like when I came back,
I went back to England to see Morrissey because he
was like, you know, I have the good fortune of
being friends with nol Fitzpatrick, supervet Off the Telly who's
a brilliant, brilliant and when anything happens to the animal,
seems that something's always happening into the bloody animals, Like
I like call him up and go can need help? Right,
(21:04):
And so he took our cat, Morrisy because Morrissey was
having kidney failure and one of his colleagues they're operated
and fitted a stint. Morris he's like sixteen years old,
you know, but they don't see it.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
In that way.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
They don't go like they've treated the same like a
human and go, wow, he's had a good life, fucking
like no it s You're like you love him, like
you we'll do everything that we can. Yeah, and like
so we like so we've you know, had an operation
and I like me and my wife talks about it
and goes, I think I have to go back, you know,
this operation.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
It's going to be really sort of difficult for him.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
And I feel like out of honor, like I have
to acknowledge that this cat means a lot to me.
And he reaches back into a time in my life
where I had nothing. I lived in a like a
not even one bedroom flat, one room flat when I
got that cat.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
And he's been for all of this stuff, He's witnessed
all of these things. He's been present for all of this, and.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Now I feel like he's somehow furried me to being
a father with two children, Like so now, thank you.
So now that he's sick, I feel like you can't,
like you have to live with honor.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
And doesn't amazing how you just come out of therapy.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
You're in a very raw what I can only guess,
and you know, I've been not speaking for you, but
kind of very embryonic raw.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Who am I now? Who am I going to be?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
And you get this lovely little cat that you've got
to care for, so you caring for yourself as well,
But that's beautiful. Hell, caring for the cat must have
a sense of caring for yourself as well.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, that's right, and it's sort of like a new start.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
It's nice to it's fresh. Yeah, we all escape from
sort of childhood. I suppose a lot of like I
think addiction is an attempt to sort of get a
control of your life curiously, even though it is a
very destructive impulse. So post addiction, when you're entering into
the world that's really uncertain, you're right, it is very
reassuring and beautiful to have a relationship that is reliable,
(22:47):
or a relationship with an animal, you know, and he
sort of really fulfilled that function. It was sad to
go see him the other day and how they have
to shave him up all dramatically, and he's got drips
in him and all this kind of stuff. But you
see the spirit in them, you know, these animals, you
know what life wants to carry on.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
There is this will to live, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
And how is Mole's now? Can we get an update?
Speaker 4 (23:08):
He's doing pretty good, that there's some sort of presence
of there's a word that sounds a bit like creatins
or something, which means that the amount of that is
a way of evaluating how well.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
The kidney is functioning.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
It's not dropped as much as they would have liked.
And the fact is is that kidney failure is a
prominent thing for older cats anyway. So like, but he's
improving and he's doing he's doing all right, you know, thankfully.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
What moment in your life has Morrissey witnessed that no
one else has seen and even knows about.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I don't know about that no one else has seen,
but like he's certainly, I mean, he's just been there
for sixteen years. Like he's been present in a lot
of interesting situations I've seen. Like I remember when I
first saw Morrissey with famous people, thinking, Wow, there's Morrissey
on a famous person's legs, Like it was sort of
(23:56):
really like extraordinary, like reality, he's gone all.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Broke and now that's the cat Morrissey.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Also even when I do remember when I interviewed ed
Milliban before the election fifteen, I've got footage of made
Millivan coming up the stairs and Morrissey just come through
this mug sort of trapes him by him. So he's
been there and he's been there for everything. He's just
a cat and he doesn't, you know, like any cat
care about none of it.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
I feel like one day he's going to have his
sort of show bus. He's going to set his story
behind your back about my life with Russell Brand.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And he's got some good yarns that cat. He's been
present for some interesting moments.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Big thanks to today's legend, Russell Brand. When I asked
Russell to do this podcast, he had this wonderful phrase,
as Russell would objects hum with meaning it was a
genuine joint to chat with him and to find out more.
And it's a chat made even more special because since
we spoke, sadly, Russell's cat, Morrissey, is no longer with us. However,
I still think it will go down as one of
(24:57):
Russell's greatest loves of his life many loves. We had
this big hug afterwards, and I thanked him for being
so open and honest. Russell sometimes strikes me you'll probably
like this too. He's almost like superhuman in a shimmering
ultra confidence and speed of thought. But this chat reminded
me of the sweet tenderness that lies within him and
all of us.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I hope you enjoyed it too.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
If this episode has brought up anything tricky for you,
please get in touch with Beyond Blue in Australia at
beyond blue dot org dot au.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
They do amazing work.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
If you're elsewhere in the world, you can find support
at checkpoint org dot com slash global. Make sure you
don't miss any of our upcoming legends. Follow the show
for free on iHeartRadio or whatever podcast app you're listening
to me on. I'm Christian O'Connell and until next time,
this is the stuff of legends.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
That was great, Thank you so much, Lovely Spilmising. I
found it was so interesting.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I think it's really good.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
I'd be really interesting, sir, Oh, listen to this podcast
is a sort of thing of life. I like you're
doing interviews or a laugh, but you're serious and getting
into people you always have done.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I'll be like, I'm like hearing that. I want to
find out answers. I want to know what. Do you
know that I might be going to make sense?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah, yeah, you know
Speaker 3 (26:17):
H
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