Don’t even think about it.
Kristen Bell warned co-star Russell Brand not to “mess with” her on the set of their 2008 movie, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” years before sexual abuse claims against the actor came to light.
“He didn’t try to mess with me or get in my pants. He knew I would lop his nuts off,” the actress, 43, said of Brand, 48, while speaking to the Scottish Daily Record in 2010.
Bell played the comedy film’s titular character, Sarah Marshall, while Brand portrayed her on-screen boyfriend, Aldous Snow. The movie also starred Mila Kunis and Jason Segel as Rachel Jansen and Peter Bretter, respectively.
During a separate interview with the Daily Mail that has since resurfaced amid the allegations, Bell said she had “intimidated” Brand from the beginning, telling him he shouldn’t try anything.
“I made it really clear from the beginning that I would sock him in the balls if he tried anything. So he was intimidated,” she said at the time.
Bell later admitted, however, that she “loved” working with Brand on the film — even if she might be “the only woman in the world who would shout that from the rooftops.”
Still, the stern warning is now raising eyebrows, as the actor is facing accusations of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse from multiple women.
The alleged incidents, which allegedly took place from 2006 to 2013, came to light over the weekend after four anonymous women came forward in an exposé published by the Sunday Times and a Channel 4 “Dispatches” TV special.
One of the accusers revealed a letter she wrote to Brand after he allegedly raped her “against a wall” in his Los Angeles home in July 2012. Another of the victims claimed that when she was just 16 years old, she got involved in an “emotionally abusive and controlling” relationship with then-31-year-old Brand.
Brand “absolutely” denied the allegations in a video shared via social media, calling the claims “extremely egregious and aggressive” attacks.
“These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies, and as I’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous,” he said.
“Now during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual. I was always transparent about that then … and to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal, that I absolutely deny, makes me question, is there another agenda at play?”
On Monday, Brand became the focus of new allegations as the Times reported that “several” more women have come forward and contacted the UK newspaper since the exposé was published.
Reps for Brand did not immediately respond to Pvnew’s requests for comment.
