Pints With Aquinas
Overcoming Addiction, Allegations and Finding Christ (Russell Brand) | Ep. 578
11 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What allegations have been made about Russell Brand?
Allegations have been made about you. Can we talk about that or not?
One thing I've always known about myself is that I was motivated by some sort of culturally born appetite for fame, celebrity success, power. And yet I also had what feels like the spiritual equivalent of a pathology towards mission. Something that you are going to do this no matter what.
How are you standing upright and not in constant panic given the fact that you have to go and stand trial in a few months? Because I believe in God. Right. Can you back up to what led to this encounter with Christ?
As a crack addict and a heroin addict, really what you're trying to do is defibrillate the dead world, the dead world, into some sort of state of meaning, some sort of vitality.
I would like to ask you, if it's not too personal a question, why you're not a Catholic.
When I'm taking communion at the Protestant church that I go to, I like... I want it to be his flesh, and I want it to be his blood. It isn't, though. I love the rosary. It's evocative. It's powerful to me.
How could you not? This is for you, by the way. I wanted to give it to you.
Oh, you're kidding me. Even for some things relatively trivial, like the appearance on Piers Morgan, which bit of you hurts after that? Give it up.
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Chapter 2: How does Russell Brand cope with his upcoming trial?
Put that at the foot of the cross. Now you know. Oh, so you do care. You don't want people to think you're dumb. Oh, you don't want people to think you're fraudulent. Put that at the foot of the cross. Give that to him.
What's it like coming on a show like this with a fella you've never met before, not knowing what I want to talk to you about, especially given all that's going on right now?
I suppose that faith means that I'm guided by things unseen and therefore a level of trust is continually required. And also I'm trying not to rely on my own ability to make assessments about what I want, what I don't want, what's right for me. Although I'm sort of undergoing, people don't understand, I don't think.
I undergo quite a lot of internal interrogation continually and have always done. I'm not a person who does things unquestioningly. Although I do know when I'm in the flow, when I'm in the spirit.
Chapter 3: What led to Russell Brand's encounter with Christ?
And I know when I'm, I start to detect now with greater efficiency when I'm not. So what it's like actually is kind of, in a way, refreshing, even though I've traveled here and it's at the Daily Wire. And look, I'm not the only controversial thing in the world. Catholicism is controversial. If you carry on, you'll be controversial at some point. Daily Wire is controversial.
The relationship between Judaism and Christianity is controversial. Me going on Piers Morgan and taking a while to locate. That was fun.
Chapter 4: Why does Russell Brand prefer Protestant communion over Catholicism?
The rest of the stuff. I watched it last night. How did you think it went?
I mean, I did two interviews in a pretty short period of time, and one I thought was pretty good- With him or Megyn? Megyn Kelly was, I would say, ultimately not hugely beneficial. And one that I felt at the time, degrees of discomfort also didn't go well. Matt, I'm beginning to... These are the kind of inquiries that I'm making to myself right now. Why are you going on podcasts?
What do you want? What do you want? How am I supposed to reconcile? And indeed, am I supposed to reconcile? Or is there someone undertaking reconciliation on my behalf? And indeed, reconciliation and substitution are also...
central to his role that my role is almost redundant but nevertheless how do i reconcile me knowing one thing i've always known about myself is i was motivated by some sort of culturally born appetite for fame celebrity success power all of the trinkets that anyone would recognize that still dominate what is now known as the manosphere in many places male status symbols
Affability, ability to attract mates, status, all those things. And yet I also had, and I feel it still, what feels like the spiritual equivalent of a pathology towards mission. Something that you are going to do this no matter what. If this kills you, you will carry on doing it. I felt both of those things. Self-God, self-God, before I had that vocabulary.
Before I knew how to make them distinctions, before I knew that that was a paradigm that's described scripturally.
Well, I'd love to ask you why you're on, because I'll tell you why I'm having you on. Even though it's a show on The Daily Wire, I'm not terribly interested in politics, not because politics can't be interesting or isn't important. But what I'm really excited to talk to you about is how your journey to Jesus Christ. We have your book, How to Become a Christian in Seven Days.
May take 50 years of sin and serious F-ups to get started. And then also, you're a big name, and so that helps my channel. Those are my two honest reasons for interviewing you. What's your honest reason for being on my show?
My honest reason is that I'm promoting that book, and I'm interrogating even now whether or not... Guess what I read today? I've got some nuts doing this, haven't I? Bookmarks are in place. Actually, to tell you the truth, Isaiah 43, 18, which is what I was looking for in the now, it seems ridiculous to say, famous meme, like a meme. It was already bookmarked. It's already bookmarked.
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Chapter 5: What insights does Russell Brand share about his potential conversion to Catholicism?
And still, yeah, who knows? I may become Catholic. I'm waiting. I pray and I ask. If there's something I'm not doing that you want me to do, show me. I don't want to do that from Romans. What I don't want to do, I do. And what I do want to do, I don't. I want to be what he wants me to be. So I'm completely open. And there's loads of Catholics I know that I really love it.
I love the meat of the saints. I love the Holy Mother. I love the blood. I love the flesh. I know that there's something sensual in it that's enough to overcome the erotic. I know there's a lot in there. However, when I was last in Rome, I went there to see my godson. He's there. His father, like, I got a god kid. And then he's, God rest his eternal soul, Martino, died.
And that meant that the godfather role took on a different kind of meaning. So I was there to see him. My mate Joe, who I told you about just now, he was there too. And we go to, I can't remember which church it was, but people will be able to identify easily from this. There are three Caravaggios there of St.
Matthew. I know the one you mean, but I forget the name of the church.
It might be something like St. Luther. I think it's like, you know, there's a L-U-C somewhere in it, right? So we're looking, and I've been there before and looked at them before, but I enjoyed it more this time somehow, the anointing or appointing of St. Matthew. And some people, they say, they debate which one's meant to be Matthew, but I don't debate it. I know which one it is. It's this one.
Like, nah, man, nah. That's the one. There's no question in my mind that that's who the finger is pointing at. Then the next one is him writing the gospel with an angel about him. And then the next one is him having his skin cut off and him being martyred and executed. And when I looked at that, it's not a triptych, but they're three paintings displayed together.
When I looked at them and I thought you have 10 minutes and a few heartbeats away from the Vatican, like that kind of Christianity, that costs you something. It cost him something. The reason that dude's like, oh, no, don't take me out of my tax collecting gig because I know where this goes. I'm going to have real skin in the game. It made me in a moment.
This came to me not as a thought, but as a feeling that the Vatican would have battlements. The Vatican would feel like a sort of the center of a war. It would feel like it. It would not have some easy affiliation that if not secular may as well be. the acceptance of this relationship between the church and the state. Now, I will make exactly the same charge or observation.
Who am I to be dishing out charges? I'm here to receive, not to issue. The Church of England, I can even hear in the composition of that idiom, Church of England, where the superior power lies. It's with England, it's not with the church, and we all know what happened and how that was established.
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