Trigger warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence. With their divorce resurfacing after the allegations, many people are asking why Katy Perry and Russell Brand divorced.
Katy Perry married Russell Brand in 2010. They started dating in 2009 and became engaged four months later, when they had a traditional Hindu wedding in India. The marriage lasted 14 months, with Brand infamously ending the relationship through a text on New Year’s Eve. (The exchange was documented in Perry’s documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me.)
Trigger warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence. With their divorce resurfacing after the allegations, many people are asking why Katy Perry and Russell Brand divorced.
Katy Perry married Russell Brand in 2010. They started dating in 2009 and became engaged four months later, when they had a traditional Hindu wedding in India. The marriage lasted 14 months, with Brand infamously ending the relationship through a text on New Year’s Eve. (The exchange was documented in Perry’s documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me.)
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Why did Katy Perry and Russell Brand Split?
Katy Perry and Russell Brand divorced due to various circumstances. “Sadly, Katy and I are ending our marriage. I’ll always adore her and I know we’ll remain friends,” he said in a statement at the time, per People. In a Howard Stern Interview, he talked about the end of the marriage. “She’s young, successful, and dedicated,” he said. “You can’t fully understand it until you do it. I was really into the idea of marriage and having children.”
“I don’t want anything to hurt her. She’s younger than me, she’s a young woman and she’s beautiful and she’s sensitive and I care about her deeply … I don’t want to be too glib. She’ll read it and she’ll be sad and I don’t want that,” Brand added.
In an interview with Vogue in 2013, Perry revealed the grounds of the marriage. “At first when I met him he wanted an equal, and I think a lot of times strong men do want an equal, but then they get that equal and they’re like, ‘I can’t handle the equalness.’ He didn’t like the atmosphere of me being the boss on tour. So that was really hurtful, and it was very controlling, which was upsetting,” Perry said at the time.
“I felt a lot of responsibility for it ending, but then I found out the real truth, which I can’t necessarily disclose because I keep it locked in my safe for a rainy day. I let go and I was like, ‘This isn’t because of me; this is beyond me.’ So I have moved on from that.”
Before Brand was charged with assault and rape, he revealed on his podcast how he felt about his marriage to Perry. “What can I tell you is, when I was married to Katy Perry, she’s like a—not entirely normal, because she’s an extraordinary, massive star—but she’s not weird or off key,” Russell said during his podcast Stay Free with Russell Brand April 3. “And wasn’t involved in anything nefarious, as far as I could tell.”
He continued, “The reasons that a marriage didn’t work are the normal human reasons marriages don’t work, and I have nothing but respect for her. I obviously disagree with her political views,” Russell added, “but I probably disagree with some of my wife’s political views, my beloved wife, Laura Brand’s political views. So, you know, you always disagree with people, don’t ya?”
The British comedian, 48, has recently been accused of sexual assault by five women between 2006 and 2013, per The Times UK. The report, which was published following a joint investigation with The Times of London and the U.K. network Channel 4’s documentary team “Dispatches,” details claims of “rape, sexual assaults and emotional abuse” allegedly carried out by Brand. On April 4, 2024, Brand has as been charged with one count of rape, one count of indecent assault, one count of oral rape and two counts of sexual assault after detectives started investigating 18 months back.