Certainly not since the hardened Pharisee St. Paul had his vision on the road to Damascus has there been such an unlikely convert to the Christian faith.
Russell Brand announced this week that he has become a Christian and was baptized last weekend. The apostle Paul was baptized in Damascus, after which the “scales fell from his eyes” and his blindness was healed. The disgraced comedian's experience was apparently a bit more prosaic: he says he was completely submerged in the notoriously dirty River Thames.
The Mail has learned that the embattled Brand's spiritual rebirth – if that is what it is – is being mirrored by a revival of his earthly fortunes. Thames Valley Police have concluded their investigation into a woman's allegations that he stalked and harassed her between 2018 and 2022.
A Thames Valley spokesperson said: “We have carried out a thorough investigation. There are now no new lines of inquiry unless new information comes to light.' Fire remains the subject of a parallel investigation by the metropolitan police on various allegations of sexual crimes.
He has been accused by four women of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse allegedly committed over a seven-year period from 2006 to 2013, when he was at the height of his fame and working for the BBC And Channel 4 as well as acting in Hollywood films.
Russell Brand announced this week that he has become a Christian and was baptized last weekend. He says he was completely submerged in the notoriously dirty River Thames
All Saints, an Anglican church near Brand's home in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, seemed a likely candidate to have baptized him – but the church has denied doing so
Brand has strongly denied the allegations, insisting his relationships were “always consensual.”
Nevertheless, his interest in Christianity appears to have increased significantly since he became embroiled in the allegations in 2023. Brand said he was baptized because he saw it as “an opportunity to put the past behind him” and “put the sins behind him to let'.
Reactions to the news of his baptism have been mixed. Some Christians have welcomed him into the faith, citing the Gospel of Luke about God's greater joy over a single sinner who repents than over 99 people who remain righteous.
Others are skeptical; some suspect a publicity stunt to burnish his reputation, and others doubt a man who promotes many New Age ideas and philosophies, and who seems to have a pick 'n' mix attitude towards religion.
He previously said he was a Buddhist, and hours after his baptism he posted a video online discussing how to predict the future with tarot cards.
Brand claimed that 'many Christians would say that tarot and even yoga are a kind of heresy', but – indulging his pretentious and not always convincing passion for long words – he wondered whether people could follow 'hybrid modalities' in their faith .
Brand has a crucifix tattooed on his right arm dating back to at least 2019, suggesting his interest in Christianity is not completely fictional.
He told his four million Instagram followers that his baptism was an “incredible and profound experience.”
He said, 'This is my path now. And I already feel incredibly blessed, relieved, nourished and held.”
However, Brand, whose wife Laura (daughter of golfer Bernard Gallacher) is Catholic, was strangely vague about the church to which he is admitted.
And you'd think that any cleric who baptizes such a notorious delinquent as Brand — who has spoken openly about his past womanizing and drug use — wouldn't hesitate to say so. But the Mail's investigations around Brand's home near Marlow, on the Thames in Buckinghamshire, have revealed that no one, not even from a church he attended, could provide any clues as to who had baptized him or where.
Reactions to the news of Brand's baptism have been mixed. Some Christians have welcomed him into the faith, while others are skeptical that it is just a publicity stunt to save his reputation.
In March, Brand said he had visited Anglican and Catholic churches and was considering Orthodox churches. He has repeatedly referenced Catholicism in his online posts and recently used a rosary to pray. He says he used the Catholic prayer app Hallow and watched the videos of a Catholic YouTube priest, Father Mike Schmitz.
However, Catholic canon law stipulates that baptisms, except in 'necessity', must take place in a church or oratory. Catholic sources have said that it is highly unlikely that the ceremony was performed by a Catholic clergyman.
Brand has also said he has explored Anglicanism and taken the Evangelical Alpha course.
Anglican churches sometimes perform river baptisms, including in the Thames, as do Pentecostal churches. According to Brand, he picked petals from a flower to decide which church would baptize him, reciting: “Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Pentecostal….”
A river baptism sounds like classic Brand – not for him a simple splash of water from a church font, it has to be melodramatic.
But the Mail visited churches and spoke to clergy and church officials in Henley-on-Thames and Marlow, and no one confessed to the act. Dennis Harwood, director of St Peter and St Paul's Church in Medmenham, near Marlow, said: 'We are completely traditional in the Hambleden Valley group and use fonts in the church and that's it.
“There are no churches in the valley that participate in those types of services.”
A church leader said: 'We do baptisms, but we do that here in the church, but that is not theatrical enough for him.'
Most churches only baptize at the baptismal font. An exception is All Saints, an Anglican church in Marlow that also runs Alpha courses and which Brand has attended in the past, according to a photo on social media. It seemed a likely candidate, but All Saints also denied doing it.
Father Calvin Robinson, the former Catholic priest and conservative commentator, posted on X (formerly Twitter) last Friday calling on people to “Please keep Russel Brand in your prayers. As he approaches his baptism, and immediately thereafter, he will be heavily attacked by the enemy. There will be those who tempt him, doubt him, resent him, cause him to stumble, fight over his denomination.”
But about baptism he says: 'It wasn't me, but it's a very good thing. I pray for him.
And where could Brand have been baptized? Brand's own garden at the beautiful thatched house he bought for £3 million in 2015 leads straight to the river.
But not a single neighbor noticed a baptism. One pointed out that although the river looks calm, it is quite choppy because the river is close to a lock.
An elderly neighbor laughed and said: 'I can't believe he would have been baptized in this part of the Thames; he would have been washed away and never seen again.”
Brand famously upset locals when he bought The Crown Inn, in the hamlet of Pishill in south Oxfordshire, and made it the base of his internet broadcasting career. The Mail reported in January that despite being 'cancelled' over the sex crimes allegations, he is making millions from 'tenth conspiracy theory videos' shot in the converted pub for social media platform Rumble.
But Brand seems popular with his neighbors, who say he chats with them when he's jogging or walking the dog.
Some were surprised by the news that he had been baptized.
Shepherd Sam Horner said: 'The thing is he's a big believer in not going into the river because it's dirty.'
Another stifled a laugh when told Brand had been baptized in the Thames. 'He must have caught some bugs there. That's the funniest thing I've heard. I haven't seen Russell in a long time. That's pure comedy.'
Brand likes to laugh, but that can't have been the reaction he expected after his watery confession to the Christian faith.
Additional reporting: Stephanie Condron and Ross Slater