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Russell Brand Trial: Accuser Says He Treated Her Like An Animal
In the Russell Brand trial, a complainant told Southwark Crown Court she was anally raped in 2009 and later texted him: you treated me like an animal.
A woman who accuses Russell Brand of anal rape told police she was left bleeding for days and later learned she had an anal tear, as the Russell Brand trial continued at Southwark Crown Court in London on Wednesday.
Brand, 51, denies three charges of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. The allegations span a decade, from 1999 to 2009, and involve six women. He has said he has never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity, and he has pleaded not guilty to every charge.
Wednesday was among the busiest days of the trial: the jury heard from three of the six accusers, according to Deadline’s live coverage.
What The Complainant Told Police About The Night In 2009
The woman, referred to in reporting as Complainant 5 because she has a lifelong right to anonymity, gave evidence from behind a screen. Her two-hour 2024 police interview was played to the jury, and she was then cross-examined.
She said she met Brand at a Hammersmith Apollo stand-up show in early 2009, went to his dressing room and performed oral sex on him, despite having a boyfriend at the time. She told officers she made clear she did not want penetrative sex that night. Days later, after repeated messages from Brand, she agreed to go to his home in Hampstead, north London, expecting vaginal sex.
According to her account, an associate let her in and told her Brand was on the phone to America. When he came downstairs, she said, he told her: “This is the best decision you’ve ever made.” She said he then told her to shower because “your hair smells funny”, and the BBC reported she also said he made her brush her teeth.
She said the first part of the encounter was consensual vaginal sex with a condom. She then alleged Brand turned her onto her front and anally raped her, ignoring her requests to stop, and that she realised afterwards he had removed the condom. She alleged he said: “I want you to feel my cum.” After it was over, she said, he looked “absolutely horrified” and told her: “You need to clean up the mess that you’ve made.”
She told police the pain was severe enough that she sat on an ice cube tray, that she was later told she had an anal tear, and that she was tested for HIV, which came back negative. She said she struggled with alcohol and went to rehab in 2023.
The Cross-Examination At The Heart Of The Russell Brand Trial
Ian Winter KC, defending, put it to her repeatedly that she had consented and regretted it afterwards. He noted she had gone to Brand’s house knowing she would have sex with him, that she knew his reputation, and that he had won The Sun newspaper’s “Shagger of the Year” award three years running.
She accepted she had been a “massive fan”, that she had made “a huge mistake” with her boyfriend, and that she went willingly. She rejected the suggestion that willingness to attend amounted to consent to what followed.
“We’re not here to discuss my morality. We’re here to discuss criminality,” she told the court. “I thought I was going to have penetrative vaginal sex.” She added: “Just because you go somewhere willingly, that does not mean the outcome at the end is [necessarily] consensual.”
Winter also suggested Brand asked her to shower because he disliked the smell of alcohol, citing what the BBC reported as his “soberism”, rather than her hair.
The Text Exchange Both Sides Accept
A text exchange months after the alleged assault is not in dispute. She said she ran into Brand at the Edinburgh Festival and he messaged her out of the blue; she asked why he was writing.
“Because you’re dirty and I want to push you further,” she said he replied. She told the court she responded: “I think you’ve pushed me far enough, you treated me like an animal.” Brand apologised immediately, she said.
Winter suggested the messages showed Brand had pushed and degraded her but had not raped her. She replied: “I didn’t consent.”
At one point she described carrying “a lot of burden” and said she felt guilt because she went to the house willingly: “I carried that feeling of guilt and shame … for exactly the reason that you are doing right here, making me feel like I brought it on myself.”
The Record So Far, And What It Does Not Show
The prosecution has said all six complainants came forward after Channel 4’s Russell Brand: In Plain Sight documentary, and that none of the women know each other. The court has been told Brand declined to answer questions when interviewed by police. His defence is expected to be set out later in the trial.
No verdict exists. Charges are accusations, not findings, and none of the allegations reported here has been proved. The account above reflects sworn testimony and recorded police interviews played or given in open court.
For readers outside the UK, the procedure matters as much as the testimony. Complainants in English sexual-offence cases can give evidence from behind a screen and retain anonymity for life — arrangements that differ sharply between jurisdictions, which is why cross-border coverage of this case often omits the safeguards built into the London proceedings.
The complainants’ evidence is now complete. The court returns on Thursday to hear other witnesses.
What To Watch
The question for the jury is narrow: whether the prosecution proved an absence of consent to a specific act, not whether the complainant behaved wisely beforehand. The defence has built its case on the gap between willingness to travel to Hampstead and consent to anal sex — a distinction the law treats as decisive but which cross-examination is designed to blur.
Watch for the defence case, the remaining witnesses, and the judge’s eventual directions on consent. Until then, the Russell Brand trial remains a proceeding, not a conclusion.
Frequently Asked Questions (Russell Brand trial)
What charges does Russell Brand face in the trial?
Three charges of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault, based on allegations from six women covering 1999 to 2009. He denies all charges and has pleaded not guilty.
Has any verdict been reached in the Russell Brand trial?
No. The complainants’ evidence has concluded and the court returns on Thursday to hear other witnesses. Brand’s defence is expected to be set out later in the trial. Charges are accusations, not findings.
Why is the complainant not named in reports?
She has a lifelong right to anonymity under English court procedure and gave evidence from behind a screen. She is referred to in reporting as Complainant 5.
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About Clare Dominic
Clare Dominic is the Editor at AfriLatest. With a background in journalism and a passion for storytelling, she oversees the editorial process to ensure content is accurate, engaging, and relevant. Clare works closely with contributors to maintain the highest standards of journalistic integrity across all news, sports, and lifestyle coverage.
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World News
WTO Urges Africa To Build Regional Value Chains
WTO’s Okonjo-Iweala told an Abuja conference Africa must build regional value chains, citing 3% of global exports against 30% of critical minerals.
The final score out of Abuja reads 3 to 30, and it is the reason the World Trade Organisation spent Monday pressing African governments on regional value chains. Africa holds nearly 30 per cent of the world’s critical mineral reserves, including cobalt, lithium, manganese, copper, nickel and graphite. It accounts for only three per cent of global exports. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala used those two numbers to open a conference titled Africa and the Geoeconomics of African States, Integration, Power and Structural Transformation.
The event was organised by the International Centre for Regional Integration and Trade Research at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, and staged in the capital on Monday. Okonjo-Iweala was represented by Jan Yves Remy, identified in the News Agency of Nigeria account as a WTO adviser on international trade. The room included the WTO chair for Nigeria, a vice chancellor, and a federal government delegation. It did not include a single trade figure that flattered the continent.
What The WTO Means By Regional Value Chains
The director-general’s argument is about where value is booked, not how much raw material moves. “Africa must move beyond exporting raw materials to processing and manufacturing products locally to retain more economic value,” she said, according to the Peoples Gazette. She described the African Continental Free Trade Area as a geoeconomic instrument for expanding production and creating regional value chains.
The baseline is thin. Intra-African exports accounted for about 17 per cent of the continent’s merchandise exports in 2024. That is the number the AfCFTA is supposed to move, and it has barely moved.
Nigeria’s Lithium Factories And The Processing Test
Vice President Kashim Shettima made the parallel case for downstream industry at the same conference. “Resources confer potential. It is the capacity to process, transform, innovate, and negotiate that converts potential into prosperity,” he said, per Premium Times. Shettima, represented by Tope Fasua, the president’s special adviser on economic affairs, cited cocoa and crude oil as commodities the continent ships out without the plants to manufacture from them. He said the federal government is supporting three lithium-processing factories, in Nasarawa, Kaduna and Abuja.
Three plants do not build a value chain. They are a test case: if lithium leaves Nigeria as concentrate and returns as cells, the processing argument failed on its own home ground.
The Obstacles Named Are The Expensive Ones
Okonjo-Iweala listed infrastructure gaps, institutional weaknesses and non-tariff barriers as the major obstacles to implementing the continental agreement. The remedies she proposed — roads, ports, electricity, shipping connections, trade finance, efficient customs and predictable regulation — are capital-intensive and slow. Customs reform is unglamorous and decides whether a truck sits at a border for two days or two weeks.
The Gap Between Signing A Deal And Trading Under It
Prof. Ngozi Egbuna, the WTO chair for Nigeria and director of the hosting centre, put the implementation problem in plain terms. Signing agreements and establishing a continental market, she said, does not automatically produce economic benefits. The real test of the AfCFTA is whether African businesses can trade across borders, create jobs and retain economic value. She urged scholars to push research into negotiations and public policy rather than leaving it in journals.
Prof. Pat Utomi supplied the sharpest contrast of the day: Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo sit on critical minerals while recording some of the world’s highest poverty levels. Endowment, in other words, is not a scoreboard.
Bond Anyaehie, vice chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, argued that trade liberalisation on its own does not build collective economic power, and called for infrastructure development, industrialisation and competitive local enterprises. Okonjo-Iweala’s final ask was intellectual: universities and the African Trade Group of WTO Chairs should strengthen research, training and policy engagement.
A note on scope. No game results, roster moves, injury reports or league records appear in the reporting cited here. Every figure above is a trade statistic, and it is treated as one.
The Standings Implications Of Regional Value Chains
The conference produced no binding commitments, no timetable and no financing pledge. What it produced was a public accounting. A continent holding roughly 30 per cent of the minerals that batteries, turbines and defence supply chains depend on, and capturing three per cent of global exports, is not short of geology. It is short of processing capacity, power, ports and customs systems that function.
That is the standings picture the WTO wants changed. The push on regional value chains is a demand that the 17 per cent intra-African export share rise, and that the margin on cobalt, lithium and cocoa be earned on the continent instead of abroad. Until the lithium plants in Nasarawa, Kaduna and Abuja run at scale, the score stays 3 to 30.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly did the WTO ask African countries to do?
Strengthen regional value chains, industrialisation and infrastructure so the continent increases its share of global trade. Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said Africa must move beyond exporting raw materials to processing and manufacturing locally to retain more economic value.
How large is Africa’s share of global exports?
About three per cent, according to Okonjo-Iweala’s remarks in Abuja, despite the continent holding nearly 30 per cent of the world’s critical mineral reserves including cobalt, lithium, manganese, copper, nickel and graphite.
What share of African trade stays inside Africa?
Intra-African exports accounted for roughly 17 per cent of the continent’s merchandise exports in 2024, a figure the African Continental Free Trade Area is intended to raise.
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Clare Dominic is the Editor at AfriLatest. With a background in journalism and a passion for storytelling, she oversees the editorial process to ensure content is accurate, engaging, and relevant. Clare works closely with contributors to maintain the highest standards of journalistic integrity across all news, sports, and lifestyle coverage.
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RetailMeNot Cash Back Event Marks 20 Years
RetailMeNot’s cash back event marks 20 years with up to 30% back at 3,500+ retailers and a $1,500 travel giveaway for 10 shoppers.
The RetailMeNot cash back event marking the company’s 20th anniversary launched on November 5, 2026, offering up to 30 percent cash back at more than 3,500 retailers and a new travel giveaway of $1,500 each for ten shoppers.
The event, known as National Cash Back Day, runs through November 7. It includes offers from Walmart, Ulta, SharkNinja, Gap, and others, with boosted rates during a two-hour ‘Appy Hour’ flash window on November 5 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm CT, according to a RetailMeNot press release.
This is the eighth edition of National Cash Back Day, which RetailMeNot created in 2019. Since then, the company says it has put more than $110 million back in members’ pockets. That figure comes from RetailMeNot and has not been independently audited.
What The RetailMeNot Cash Back Event Confirms About Holiday Shopping Trends
The company’s 2026 holiday survey, fielded in September 2026 with 1,183 respondents, finds that 63 percent of shoppers start their holiday shopping in October or earlier. Another 47 percent plan to start even earlier than last year. The survey also reports that 58 percent view Black Friday as a month-long event rather than a single weekend, and only 17 percent wait specifically for Cyber Week.
These findings are company-commissioned and self-reported. They align with broader retail observations but should be treated as marketing data rather than independent research. Still, the numbers are specific and come with a stated methodology.
RetailMeNot’s 20-year history provides a longer timeline. When it launched in 2006, it had approximately 1,000 coupon codes. In 2026 year to date, it has surfaced nearly 400,000 unique offers, according to StockTitan. Its cash back offers have facilitated $1.9 billion in retailer sales to date. Those figures are also company-reported.
Separating Company Claims From Verified Data In The RetailMeNot Cash Back Event
The event’s headline offer—up to 30 percent cash back—is a maximum rate, not a guarantee. Individual rates vary by retailer. For example, LG offers up to 22 percent, Dyson up to 20 percent, and Walmart up to 10 percent, according to WWD. The ‘Appy Hour’ window on November 5 features higher rates, such as 30 percent at SharkNinja and 20 percent at Walmart, but only for two hours.
The travel giveaway is a new addition. RetailMeNot will select ten shoppers to receive $1,500 each toward holiday travel. The company cites Hopper’s 2026 Holiday Travel Index as projecting holiday travel to be the most expensive in a decade. Hopper’s index is a third-party data source, but the link is provided by RetailMeNot, and the full methodology is not included in the release.
Mackenzie Shand, shopping expert and executive editor at RetailMeNot, said in the release: ‘Holiday shopping is already a major expense for families, and this year, the cost of getting home to celebrate is adding even more pressure.’ The quote is a direct statement from the company.
Why The RetailMeNot Cash Back Event Matters Beyond The US
The event is US-centric. All named retailers operate primarily in the United States. The survey respondents are likely US-based, though the release does not specify geography. For global audiences, especially in Africa, the relevance lies in the model: cash back as a savings tool has scaled in the US through platforms like RetailMeNot, but similar infrastructure is less developed in many African markets, where rewards are often tied to mobile money or bank loyalty programs. No data in the source material quantifies cash back adoption in Africa.
The underlying economic pressure is global. Inflation and rising travel costs affect households worldwide. RetailMeNot’s response—combining cash back with a travel giveaway—is a targeted attempt to address a specific pain point: the cost of getting home for the holidays. Whether that model translates to markets with different payment systems and retail structures is an open question.
RetailMeNot operates as part of Ziff Davis, a NASDAQ-listed digital media company. Ziff Davis’s reach is global, but RetailMeNot’s cash back event remains a US promotion. The company’s 20-year milestone is real, but its celebration is designed for American shoppers.
What to watch: The immediate metric is whether the event drives measurable sales for participating retailers and whether the travel giveaway generates enough engagement to become a recurring feature. For global markets, the question is whether cash back platforms can replicate the US model where mobile money and banking infrastructure differ. The RetailMeNot cash back event marking 20 years is a test case for how digital savings evolve in the next decade.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the RetailMeNot cash back event?
It is an annual promotion called National Cash Back Day, created by RetailMeNot in 2019. It offers cash back at thousands of retailers, typically for a few days in early November.
When does the 2026 RetailMeNot cash back event take place?
The event runs from November 5 through November 7, 2026. A special ‘Appy Hour’ flash window with boosted rates occurs on November 5 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm CT.
How can shoppers participate in the RetailMeNot cash back event?
Shoppers must log in to RetailMeNot.com or the RetailMeNot Rewards app, activate an offer, and complete an eligible purchase on the retailer’s site by November 7.
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Céline Dion Air Bass At Metallica’s Sphere: What’s Confirmed
The Céline Dion air bass clip at Metallica’s Sphere show is real. Who filmed it, and what it proves about Las Vegas residencies, is less clear.
The phone footage runs only a few seconds. It shows Céline Dion on her feet in a suite at Sphere in Las Vegas, hands working an invisible fretboard as Metallica’s Robert Trujillo plays beside Kirk Hammett. The Céline Dion air bass moment, captured on Thursday, Nov. 5, has since travelled further than most official tour announcements do.
That gap — between a fan’s camera roll and global entertainment coverage — is the actual story. The miming of a bassline is not.
What follows separates what four outlets independently confirmed from what they attributed, hedged, or reported imprecisely.
Confirmed, Attributed And Disputed
Four reports — Billboard, Loudwire, Consequence and USA Today — agree on the core facts. The venue was Sphere. The date was Nov. 5, 2026. The segment was the band’s customary “Kirk and Rob Doodle,” an instrumental break for Hammett and Trujillo. Dion watched from a suite.
The setlist for that night’s installment, as reported, carried sections titled “Motown Yo Town” and “Copenhagen.”
The sourcing of the clip is less clean. Billboard, Loudwire and Consequence credit footage posted by Instagram user @theordacityyy, a fan in attendance who filmed from the room. USA Today frames it differently, stating that Dion “posted a clip of herself.” Only one description can be precisely right. None of the four reports cites a verified post from Dion’s own accounts.
The celebrity sightings carry the same soft edges. Billboard says Slash was “reportedly spotted” in the suite. Consequence says the same fan “later spotted members of Guns N’ Roses and No Doubt” alongside Dion. USA Today notes No Doubt are “themselves Sphere graduates,” a reference to their own run at the venue. None of the reports cites an official guest list, and none of the artists named has been quoted confirming attendance.
What The Céline Dion Air Bass Clip Actually Confirms
The surprise is the least interesting part of this. Dion’s rock fandom is documented across two decades and multiple primary interviews.
In 2002 she duetted with Anastacia on AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” at the Divas Live Las Vegas special. In 2007 she told Australia’s The Sunday Telegraph, in remarks relayed by Blabbermouth and cited by Loudwire, that AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” served as a soundcheck warm-up. “I like hard rock and, if I’m doing stadiums, I want the engineers to crank the sound system up high with rock ‘n’ roll, heavy metal music — it helps me to get the adrenaline rushing,” she said at the time, adding she had followed AC/DC for roughly 15 to 20 years.
Earlier in 2026 she shared a selection from her personal playlist that included Metallica’s 1996 single “Until It Sleeps,” and said one of her twins, Eddy, counts Metallica as his favourite band. Loudwire also notes that her Setlist.fm record includes covers of Journey’s “Open Arms,” Wings’ “Live and Let Die” and Queen’s “The Show Must Go On.”
Air bass itself is the anomaly. Loudwire describes it as “much more of a rarity” than air guitar or air drumming. That specificity, not the star power, explains the clip’s spread.
Metallica’s Sphere Run, By The Dates
Metallica opened the “Life Burns Faster” residency at Sphere on Oct. 1, 2026, importing the No Repeat Weekend format developed on the M72 World Tour — different setlists across paired Thursday and Saturday concerts. Loudwire reported that the residency quickly became “one of the hottest tickets in rock and metal” after it was announced, and described the production as pairing visuals with some of the band’s biggest hits.
The 2026 portion closes Saturday, Nov. 7. The band returns to Sphere from Jan. 28, 2027, with dates booked through March 13, then heads out on a North American M72 leg from May 8 in Vancouver with Limp Bizkit and Avatar supporting.
Dion’s calendar is comparably documented, and it is the reason her presence in that suite is newsworthy rather than incidental. She closed a 16-year residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in June 2019 — the run that helped turn the Vegas residency from what USA Today calls “a career graveyard” into a sought-after booking. She cancelled a planned Resorts World residency after announcing in December 2022 that she had been diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome, a rare neurological disorder causing debilitating muscle spasms. She returned to full-length concerts in September 2026 with a sold-out 16-show Paris run, completing the first leg in October, with ten more Paris shows scheduled for May.
Reports of a new Las Vegas residency for Dion continue to circulate. Nothing beyond the Paris dates has been confirmed.
Why Fan Footage Outran Every Official Channel
The evidentiary base for this story is thin and entirely civilian: one attendee’s phone, one Instagram handle, and four newsrooms working from the same material. No statement from Sphere, from Metallica, or from Dion’s representatives appears in any of the reports reviewed.
That is not a criticism of the coverage. It is a description of how culture news now moves, and it has a structural consequence for audiences outside North America and Europe. The four reports contain no mention of African tour dates for either artist. Metallica’s published 2027 itinerary, as described, runs through North America. Dion’s runs through Paris. What connects a Las Vegas suite to readers in Lagos, Nairobi or Johannesburg is not a press conference — it is a venue model that turns a single room into a global content engine, and a phone that uploads from inside it.
What to watch is narrow and checkable. Dion’s May Paris dates. Metallica’s Jan. 28 return to Sphere. Whether either artist announces routing outside the itineraries already published. Anything beyond that — a collaboration, a joint bill, a new Dion residency — remains forecast, not fact.
The Big Picture
The Céline Dion air bass at Metallica’s Sphere is a small event carrying a clean lesson: verified detail and ambiguity travel in the same file. The date, the venue, the segment and the performer are solid across four independent outlets. The identity of whoever posted first is not. The guest list is secondhand. The residency talk is rumour.
Treat the episode as evidence of a documented fandom and a functioning celebrity-residency circuit that rewards proximity over publicity. Do not treat it as confirmation of anything else.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did Céline Dion play air bass at Metallica’s Sphere show?
The footage was captured on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, during Metallica’s Life Burns Faster residency at Sphere in Las Vegas, according to Billboard, Loudwire, Consequence and USA Today. She was filmed during the band’s ‘Kirk and Rob Doodle’ segment, standing in a suite as Robert Trujillo and Kirk Hammett played.
Did Céline Dion post the video herself?
The reporting is inconsistent. Billboard, Loudwire and Consequence credit footage posted by Instagram user @theordacityyy, a fan in attendance. USA Today states that Dion posted a clip of herself. None of the four reports cites a verified post from Dion’s own accounts.
When does Metallica’s Sphere residency resume?
The 2026 portion concludes Saturday, Nov. 7. Metallica returns to Sphere from Jan. 28, 2027, with shows booked through March 13, before a North American M72 tour leg beginning May 8 in Vancouver with Limp Bizkit and Avatar.
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Clare Dominic is the Editor at AfriLatest. With a background in journalism and a passion for storytelling, she oversees the editorial process to ensure content is accurate, engaging, and relevant. Clare works closely with contributors to maintain the highest standards of journalistic integrity across all news, sports, and lifestyle coverage.
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