Megyn Kelly is getting dragged online for victim blaming following Russell Brand’s guilty verdict in his high-profile rape trial.
On Thursday, Brand was found guilty on one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault by a U.K. jury. The actor was initially charged with five counts of rape and sexual assault against four women in April 2025: two counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. He was then charged with an additional count each of rape and sexual assault in December 2025.
Kelly took to social media following the verdict and went long defending Brand, who previously guested on her podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show,” and ridiculing one of the entertainer’s female accusers.
“She admitted that w/in moments of meeting RB backstage, she used her tongue on his anus (as another woman was fellating him),” Kelly wrote. “She hadn’t even been introduced. Later she went to his place excited for sex (which they had). The two discussed anal sex b/4 hvg it – she said it was her 1st time. Her friend testified that the accuser admitted to her that she agreed to it (told RB ‘be gentle’). RB testified they watched tv together after. When a reporter first contacted accuser about RB she said ‘I’m not sure my story has much in it; I was an idiot, young & stupid, probably as much to blame.’”
The replies in her tweet quickly filled up with people criticizing her for defending Brand. They wondered why she rushed to defend these people who were found guilty. Some even wondered if this kind of thing was a “kink” of hers.
“Why do you go out of your way to defend rapists? Is it a kink for you? What’s going on with this,” one user wrote. “There’s no reason you need to add to this conversation. You aren’t standing up for anything righteous, just rapists.”
Another accused the podcaster of promoting the kind of rhetoric that keeps women from speaking out against their accusers.
While another critic linked Kelly’s past of standing up against Fox News’ Roger Ailes to her present-day sympathy for accused men like Brand.
“From a crusader against sexual abuse to a sexual absuer sympathizer,” they wrote. “You’re pathetic.”
Read up on more of the mounting backlash against Kelly’s apparent victim blaming in the roundup below:
