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Jersey singer Nerina Pallot has opened up about "toxicity in the entertainment industry" in a powerful blog which also expresses her anger about a clip of her she claims was used in the recent Russell Brand exposé without her permission.
The former Jersey College for Girls student – who is best known for her track 'Everybody's Gone to War' – wrote about her surprise at the use of a "very short clip" of her in Channel 4's 'Russell Brand: In Plain Sight: Dispatches' in a blog post yesterday.
The Channel 4 exposé aired on September 16, and quickly garnered international attention from media outlets.
The programme makes several allegations of sexual harassment, rape, and more against the actor and comedian, which Mr Brand quickly took to social media to deny.
Video: Nerina Pallot's 'Everybody's Gone to War' reached Number 14 in the UK Singles Chart.
Writing in a blog entitled ' Lost in Showbiz, a Pop B*tch Speaks' and referencing the 1% conviction rate for rape and indecent assaults, Ms Pallot explained: "I am thinking about this conviction rate today because over the weekend Channel 4 aired an episode of their show Dispatches.
"Unbeknownst to me, a very short clip of me being interviewed by Russell Brand was used.
"Evidently, while I was eating my dinner on Saturday night, everyone I know was watching it. ‘FYI You’re in an exposé!’ are not texts one hopes to receive in the middle of pudding."
Ms Pallot described being "sad", "disturbed" and "p*ssed off" that the clip of her was "used as part of a montage to show how we women were powerless in the face of Brand’s industrial strength lechery".
Lost in Showbiz, a Pop Bitch Speaks.
— Nerina Pallot (@ladychatterley) September 19, 2023
Some thoughts on the shit show that is the entertainment industry. https://t.co/pViS2oFJlp pic.twitter.com/wJB2CB0H1B
The singer-songwriter recounted her interaction with Mr Brand, who she said she thought "might be mentally unwell" but was also "ferociously articulate" and "cunning, although not clever."
"I could not for the life of me, however, work him out, but my instinct told me he was dead behind the eyes and not to hang around at the end of the show," added Ms Pallot.
She admitted that she "can’t bear looking at those clips" as she "look[s] like a rabbit in the headlights" which she attributes to the "culture of unspeakable meanness" in the entertainment industry in the 2000s – particularly at the hands of the media.
Hopefully we are witnessing the end game of celebrity. It will bring us all immense freedom. You are fine as you are. 99.9% of people in the entertainment business are fucked up, trying to fill a whole; a lost parent; approval on mass scale. Do not worship them, RUN FROM THEM.
— Nerina Pallot (@ladychatterley) September 16, 2023
She added: "If we know that rates of conviction are atrocious, but not surprising given that instead of saving us from rapists some police officers are instead raping us and sometimes murdering us, why would the journalists involved in the joint Times and Dispatches investigation – all women I believe – go public now, and probably jeopardise any chance of a trial?
"Did they decide that because conviction rates are so appalling, trial by media was better than no trial at all? Did they offer these incredibly brave women counselling? Did they offer to pay for serious lawyers so they have any credible chance of taking this to court?"
Ms Pallot concludes her blog post by addressing "all of these folk in the media" who have "at some point turned a blind eye", saying: "This is on you too."
"And so maybe trial by media is fitting," she writes. "You create your monsters, you clear up your mess."
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