Sir Brian of Bastardia

🎥 RARE FOOTAGE: Russell Brand “apologising” (not seriously) to Andrew Sachs by singing, with Jonathan Ross joining in. This is from the infamous 2008 Sachsgate scandal. On 18 October, during a pre-recorded episode of The Russell Brand Show on BBC Radio 2, Brand and guest host Jonathan Ross tried to phone actor Andrew Sachs (Manuel from Fawlty Towers) for an interview. When he didn’t answer, they left a series of vulgar voicemail messages on his answering machine. Ross blurted out that Brand had “f***ed” Sachs’s granddaughter (Georgina Baillie). What followed were several more calls that were supposed to be apologies but quickly turned into more of the same crude banter. In one of them, Brand sings a mock apology song (“I’d like to apologise for these terrible attacks, Andrew Sachs… I said some things I didn’t of oughta, like I had sex with your granddaughter. But it was consensual and she wasn’t menstrual…”) while Ross joins in from the background. It broadcast on 18 October, with almost no reaction, just a couple of complaints. A week later the Mail on Sunday ran the story after contacting Sachs, who was unhappy (he hadn’t approved the messages being aired and said they hurt him and his family). That coverage turned it into a major scandal with tens of thousands of complaints. The BBC apologised, Ofcom later fined the corporation, Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas resigned, and Jonathan Ross was suspended for 12 weeks without pay. Russell Brand resigned from the BBC over it (his Radio 2 show ended). It became one of the biggest BBC controversies of the decade. The fact they treated the “apology” as just more comedy is what made it so inflammatory at the time.