There is a fairly large group of women in the world who would tell you Russell Brand, the noted and indiscriminate lothario, isn’t that much of a prize.
One former squeeze, student Hannah Gregory- Soskin, complained that he snored, slept with a gumshield (to stop him grinding his teeth) and dispatched her the morning after a night of passion with a friendly smack on the bottom.
Another brief fancy, former Big Brother contestant Makosi Musambasi, indicated he ‘wasn’t exactly well endowed’, while Georgina Baillie — granddaughter of the actor Andrew Sachs — grumbled that he insisted she gargle with mouthwash before they kissed.
She added: ‘He is a disappointment in the bedroom, considering he has had so much practice.’
However, it seems that heiress Jemima Khan, who has a £20 million inheritance and a long-standing interest in do-gooding, moves in rather more elevated circles than Russell’s usual conquests, and so perhaps is in a state of blissful ignorance about what to expect.
In pictures taken in New York over the weekend, she absolutely radiates cat-that-got-the-cream satisfaction.
Strolling in matching skinny jeans in the city’s East Village — his heavily tattooed right arm displaying the symbols of the seven main chakras of yogic tradition — they make an unlikely new couple.
A PR stunt? For once, where Brand is concerned, no. Sources in New York indicate they had taken some pains not to be seen together.
After realising they had been spotted, the couple immediately moved to opposite sides of the pavement. They have, though, been enjoying the city together — Brand needs to be in North America for stand-up comedy dates, and she has agreed to spend some free time with him.
Choosing New York for a date was quite a commitment for Jemima, who has a fear of flying. However, nothing is too much trouble for either in these early days of their relationship.
‘They are besotted,’ says a friend of Jemima’s, adding that no one has seen her bowled over in this kind of sexual whirlwind since her romance with her former husband, Imran Khan, when she was a 20-year-old ingenue.
Friends say Brand has been to her country estate in Oxfordshire and met her two children by Khan. On their first date, the comedian took her to a bargain Vietnamese eaterie in East London. I have also learned that they’ve also been out as a couple to a pub in Marylebone, central London.
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While Jemima has thrown over pint-sized actor Tom Hollander to be with Brand, the comedian has reciprocated by detaching himself from other recent entanglements, which included a liaison with a hotel heiress and a less serious dalliance with flame-haired glamour model Sophie Coady, famous in some circles for her 32GGG bust.
Now, it seems Jemima, 39, and Brand, 38, are — for the moment — pretty serious about each other.
As Brand wrote in a piece for The Guardian at the weekend: ‘I’m not typically immune to the allure of objectified women, but I am presently beleaguered by a nerdish, whirling dervish, and am eschewing all others.’ One friend who observed them grappling with each other on a sofa at a party last month said: ‘They put on a most extraordinary display, like a couple of hormonal teenagers. They were all over each other and obviously in that phase of a romance when you just don’t care who sees you.
‘They were all but making love. No one could believe their eyes.’
They are an odd couple. He is a recovering bulimic, drug and sex addict from Grays, Essex, and she is the daughter of billionaire financier Sir James Goldsmith and his society powerhouse third wife, Annabel.
Jemima Khan met the comic in 2007, when they were guests of a charity, the Hoping Foundation, which works for the benefit of Palestinian refugee children.
Elton John provided the music on that occasion and also in the audience were supermodel Kate Moss and her pal Sadie Frost — both former conquests of Russell Brand.
And Jemima was there, too. Sensitive, and intelligent, but also quite a flirt, it was probably inevitable that she should attract Brand’s attention — though nothing came of it, not least because at the time she was still with actor Hugh Grant, though their romance was coming to a close.
As for Brand, when he met Jemima he was in the middle of a dizzying sexual free-for-all with multiple casual partners, such as glamour model Cassie Sumner and model Imogen Thomas.
When asked how many sexual partners he had in a given time, Brand told his inquisitor to count the days. ‘Work out how many days and, here’s a simple rule, triple it!’ he grinned.
Of course, some of this should be taken with a pinch of salt, but Brand, who attended a clinic for sex addicts in Philadelphia in 2005, after reaching a point where he was having daily encounters with prostitutes, added that 80 partners a month was not unusual.
Perhaps wisely, then, Jemima didn’t take their initial contact any further. But it seems they began to bump into each other fairly regularly from then on around the London scene. Both are often to be found wherever there are canapes and a cause.
And though Jemima detests the term ‘socialite’, she definitely goes to many parties and charitable events, in between her work as a campaigner for what’s dubbed social justice. (For example, she and Brand were signatories to a letter decrying the bombing of schools in the Gaza strip in 2009.)
That was the year in which Brand met American pop star Katy Perry. Their 2010 wedding in India was immensely grand, involving entrances on elephants and parties under the stars. However, within three months he and Perry were reportedly having couple counselling, and in 2012 they divorced.
He claimed in a statement that he would ‘always adore’ her and added: ‘I know we’ll remain friends.’ In fact, they’ve not spoken since.
Brand was free to resume his womanising and ran through a huge number of women.
However, the spark with Jemima appears to have been maintained, despite these distractions. She asked him to write a piece for the New Statesman in 2011 — for which she is an editor — debating the existence of God. And the flirtation finally ignited into a relationship this summer.
They were together again at the Hoping Foundation benefit this June, and were pictured looking cosy, he in a shiny red shirt.
At the time he was chiefly living in LA and had been romancing Alessandra Balazs, the daughter of hotelier Andre.
Just a few weeks later, in late July, Brand was included in a gathering of interesting people Jemima hosted at her magnificent country home, Kiddington Hall, near Woodstock.
Jemima likes to draw political and chattering class types together for a ‘salon’.
From that point on, it seems, they have been smitten. Alessandra parted company with Brand, and Jemima broke up with actor Tom Hollander, most famous for his role in the TV show Rev.
Hollander, who at 5ft 5in is an inch shorter than Jemima, had been enjoying a very discreet romance with her — but her increasing fascination with Brand put paid to that.
Thus, on August 13, the new couple were together at The Gunmakers pub in Marylebone. A source who was in the bar that night says: ‘They were whispering into each other’s ears and giggling, as if they were a pair of schoolkids flirting with each other. He had his picture taken with a few fans who went up to him. He wasn’t hiding.’
The couple subsequently broke cover at a party after the GQ awards. The bash was hosted by PR guru Matthew Freud at his stunning home in Primrose Hill, North London, complete with champagne and catering.
One guest said: ‘Russell got into a nasty argument with the editor of GQ at the awards, because he’d launched a diatribe about the sponsors Hugo Boss having designed uniforms for the Nazis. It almost came to fisticuffs, certainly there was swearing, so everyone kept an eye open for him when he arrived at Matthew’s.
‘He made a beeline for Jemima and they started kissing on the sofa in full view of the whole room. None of us had a clue they were dating until that point. It was embarrassingly passionate. I heard Matthew had to ask them to break it up and get a room.’
Friends of the PR man deny he booted them out of the party for bad behaviour. However, he will concede that the couple were there together.
The following day, Brand took Jemima on a date to the Song Que restaurant in Hackney. They also went for a bike ride and agreed to meet this week.
Friends say their connection is intellectual above all else, which doesn’t sound convincing, though Brand shares Jemima’s Left-wing perspective on the world.
But can a couple from such different backgrounds really embark on a serious relationship?
Jemima’s crowd feel that, on her part, this may be a spot of mid-life madness — a headlong fling the like of which she’s not known since meeting playboy cricketer Imran Khan in a nightclub and agreeing to marry him barely four weeks later.
Quite how long things will last remains to be seen. But if they were ever to wed, it would certainly be one of the most extraordinary celebrity marriages of recent times.
The greatest mystery of the cosmos - what DO women see in him asks Jan Moir?
Some of the brightest and most cunning human minds have been put to work for years to solve the great mysteries of our age. Yet there are some conundrums so fiendish, so mind-boggling, so baffling that they will probably never be solved.
Who was Jack the Ripper? Is the Loch Ness monster real? Are there really no calories in Diet Coke? And perhaps most unfathomable of all, what do women see in Russell Brand?
What is it? What kind of perplexing, dark urge makes otherwise sensible females stampede towards him in much the same way that turkeys hurtle unknowingly towards Christmas?
After all, he is a notorious womaniser with a poisonous record when it comes to love and marriage.
He’s got all sorts of issues, from a nicely percolating persecution complex to assorted addiction problems.
As far as Hollywood goes, he has made a few not very good appearances in a few not very good films. His stand-up routines are for a strictly niche audience.
And perhaps most heinous of all is the fact that at the age of 38, Brand still affects to look like a seedy pirate on annual shore leave. One with layers of decomposing undergarments malodorously stewing away below his decks. One in need of a good, hot bath and a scrub down with carbolic soap, inside and outside his potty mouth.
Push him through the car wash. Unhook the power hose and blast his yoga pants. And stop him from talking in that whiny, baby voice, please. Yet none of this seems to matter to his legions of female fans. His hit rate is phenomenal.
Those who remain firmly undazzled by his charms cannot see quite why some women cannot resist him — the kind of women who like a bad boy and don’t care who knows it. These are the gals who can somehow stomach a bit of unshaven rough (ugh) and mock-intellectual banter (double ugh) over the vegan breakfast table every morning.
And what of Jemima Khan, who should know better and probably does, but has leapt into his tattooed yoga-toned arms anyway?
Forget the kids and the disapproving ex-husband on the other side of the world. Forget the billionaire family, the MP brother and the quiet, everyday responsibilities of a respectable mother-of-two about town. For Jemima, like so many before, has turned a blind eye to the fact that Brand has Totally Toxic stamped through him, like gothic letters inside a stick of rock. Yet they just go for it, even though it is bound to end in tears. With Russell Brand, it always does.
Why? Brand is clearly one of those men who overpowers women with the sheer force of his quirky personality. At first, it’s all fabulous. The sex is probably tremendous. After all, he’s had enough practice. Yet it seems clear there is a really mean streak lurking deep within him.
Never mind the chanting and the oh-so-peaceful transcendental meditation. A big pile of nasty grows like knotweed under the still pool of Brand’s supposed calm.
When it comes to the chicks, it’s no secret that Russell is in his element. In the past, he has confessed to commitment issues as being the very least of his relationship problems. He has managed to wean himself off heroin, but still seems to be addicted to sex — and there is no shortage of takers.
A ribbon of conquests flutters in his wake like a tattered flag of hollow victory. He is like a combine harvester in a ripe field of gorgeous girls, pedal to the metal, never stopping to think about the future or the past. He is one of those men who claims that he loves women, he adores them, he appreciates them, he loves everything about them. Then he treats them like dirt.
Consider his short marriage to the pop singer Katy Perry. A documentary Perry made during the time that she was still wed to Brand revealed that their relationship foundered over the issue of children.
He wanted to be a father, he wanted children straight away. In the middle of a hugely successful pop career, the then 26-year-old Perry was not quite so keen. Not just yet, she appeared to be urging.
This was not good enough. Brand ended the marriage by text and they never spoke again.
He further upset her by claiming that making love to her was boring and that he fantasied about other women when they were in bed together. Even worse, he said all this in a stand-up routine, inviting his audience to snigger along with him.
Katy Perry once voiced fears that her comic husband would one day make fun of her and use her as the butt of his jokes. How right those fears turned out to be.
And now it is Jemima’s turn to step on the Brand wheel of fortune and take her chances with the tatty Casanova.
THE LOVERS THEY LEFT BEHIND...
BRAND’S CONQUESTS
Georgina Baillie: 2006. Andrew Sachs’s granddaughter whose affair with Brand prompted his infamous radio prank call.
Kate Moss: 2006. Supermodel. Hooked up after a night out in Primrose Hill.
Sadie Frost: 2006. Actress. Enjoyed Russell’s company after Kate.
Cassie Sumner: 2006. Glamour model dumped him after he asked her to have a threesome with a prostitute.
Imogen Thomas: 2006. Former Big Brother contestant and glamour model. Dated for a few weeks.
Holly Madison: 2009. Playboy model and Hugh Hefner’s former girlfriend. Numerous dates after meeting at a party in Las Vegas.
Katy Perry (pictured): 2009-2011. Split after 14 months of marriage.
Nikolett Barabas: March 2012. Hungarian model. Bonded over yoga.
Anouska de Georgiou: May 2012. Former Playboy bunny, also dated David Hasselhoff. A passing fancy.
Geri Halliwell: August 2012. Former Spice Girl. Met at Olympics closing ceremony, but he soon cheated on her.
Kate Peck: October 2012. MTV presenter, dated him for a couple of months.
Alessandra Balazs: June 2013. Hotel heiress.
. . . 
AND JEMIMA’S BEAUS
Imran Khan: 1995-2004. Cricketer turned politician (pictured). Married in 1995 when she was 21 and he 42. Had two sons and divorced in 2004.
Hugh Grant: 2004-2007. On-off romance, she told Tatler it was miserable at the end.
Guy Ritchie: 2008. A festive season fling with the film director and Madonna’s ex.
Luke Janklow: 2009-2011. Literary agent. They were seen looking at antique rings, but never took the plunge.
John Battsek: 2011. Film executive. Met through her brother, Ben.
Tom Hollander: 2013. TV actor. They split when Brand came on the scene.
Source :
Jemima joins Brand's harem: Heiress is latest in the long line of comedian's conquests | Mail Online
