A CLIP of Katherine Ryan discussing outing an industry “predator” on a show has resurfaced after Russell Brand’s conviction.
Ryan shared the screen with disgraced Brand on the Comedy Central series Roast Battle in 2018, before he was axed.
After he was yesterday found guilty of rape and sex attacks on a string of women, a video of Ryan discussing an abuser thought to be Brand has blown up.
In a 2018 podcast with Louis Theroux, she claimed to have confronted the unnamed man “again and again” while they worked together and referred to him as a “predator”.
When Theroux asked her what she meant by that term, the 43-year-old said: “I mean perpetrator of sexual assault.”
Ryan added: “But it is very dangerous for us to have this conversation. I’m happy to have it, but it is a litigious minefield.
“Lots of people have tried to nail this person down for their alleged crimes and this person has very good lawyers.”
Ryan added word of the notorious abuser was an “open secret” in the industry as she told the shameful star to his face he was a “predator”.
When she was pressed for more details, she said simply that it was “not her story to tell” but that she had heard the allegations from “very credible” sources.
It is widely speculated the Canadian comic was referring to Brand, but she has not confirmed said predator or named the show she was working on.
However, following Brand’s conviction she has publicly said she feels “grief and relief”.
The stand-up star added there are “a lot of women speaking privately and quietly” following the verdict, who feel “a very nuanced mix of emotions”.
On her podcast Telling Everybody Everything, Ryan said: “It really made me feel just quite dysregulated again, caught off-guard, emotional, in awe of the survivors who also had nothing to gain.
“They came forward despite Russell Brand having fame, power, money, and a legion of fans ready to attack them.”
She added: “I will never be someone who like, dances on graves. There has been some justice done today. There’s a level of relief, but there’s grief alongside relief.
“Everything’s nuanced, and it was proved in court that a terrible thing happened, and that means that a terrible thing happened.
“I just think again and again about people who have been hurt, and who have to carry that, who’ve carried that around long enough, and will continue to carry that in some way, regardless of what justice is done.
“This verdict came because women were hurt, and I worry as well about what happens next.
“Because he’s obviously spent a long time cultivating this idea that the establishment have invented these claims against him, and he’s martyred himself to a growing audience who really still think that it is the courageous survivors who are the villains in this story.
“I just… I don’t know if you can podcast from jail. I hope not.”
Ryan also slammed Brand’s barrister Ian Winter KC who launched a foul-mouthed tirade at Sunday Times journalist Rosamund Urwin as he was leaving the courtroom.
He said to her: “I hope you are pleased with yourself”, and she was heard replying: “I’m pleased justice has been done”.
Mr Winter said during the clash: “Well, it wasn’t. You f***** it.” “Congratulations,” he added.
Ryan said: “That was so unprofessional, so inappropriate, so aggressive. Really sickening.”
The “ruthless, calculated and manipulative” predator Brand is facing years in jail after he preyed on women between 1999 and 2009.