How Russell Brand’s wife Laura shunned the spotlight – until now

When Russell Brand appeared in London this week for a hearing ahead of his rape and sexual assault trial, one person was attracting perhaps even more attention than him – his wife, Laura. Dressed in a yellow suit and sunglasses, in a rare public appearance, she walked with her husband into Southwark Crown Court, his hand on her shoulder. Brand, 51, a comedian and actor who has reinvented himself as a wellness influencer and right-wing podcaster, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape and four ​counts of indecent or sexual assault, alleged by six women. He denies all the charges; the trial is due to begin next week. Laura Brand, who has three children with him, has never commented on the accusations and controversy surrounding her husband, which began in 2023 when The Sunday Times published an investigation detailing allegations of rape and sexual abuse from 2006 to 2013. Shorts An author and illustrator, the 38-year-old has built a public image rooted in creativity and family life, appearing on parenting podcasts, speaking at events and promoting her children’s books through social media. Her wholesome social media feed was filled with homemade crafts, baking, children’s books and countryside walks, in contrast to her husband’s reputation for flamboyance and wild partying. However, her Instagram account (@thejoyjournal) has now disappeared, her last book was published in 2022 and there have been no new podcast appearances or interviews. Born Laura Gallacher, she grew up in Surrey on the exclusive Wentworth Estate in a family already accustomed to public attention. Her father is the Scottish golfer and former Ryder Cup captain Bernard Gallacher, and her older sister is Kirsty Gallacher, a long-standing Sky Sports presenter who is a now a radio host on Gold Radio. After studying art, Laura had a career in restaurant and nightclub management before she started illustrating children’s books and hosting podcasts exploring motherhood, creativity and wellbeing. A craft book, The Joy Journal, was published in 2020. Russell and Laura Brand in London 2017 (Photo: LMGC/GC Images) She first dated Russell, briefly, when she was 19 and he was in his early thirties, but the pair lost touch before reconnecting by chance in London in 2015. Brand was divorced from Katy Perry, the US pop star after a 14-month marriage. She told Grazia magazine: “A friend dragged me out on a walk to the canal in east London, where I’d never been in my life, and as we came on to the footpath Russell was standing there, like he’d organised it.” “I hadn’t seen Russell for years. He was so different. We both immediately knew it was going to be serious,” she told the Made by Mammas podcast in 2020. “You have to rebuild your foundations and trust again, we did it the right way. It was very slow, it was getting to know each other and going out on day trips together,” she added. “I remember him saying, ‘I think I want a quiet life and a family,’” and it was exactly what I wanted. So, then it was about seeing if we could build a foundation to make that happen,” she told You. It was the beginning of a second chance for a couple, although her father reportedly disapproved of their age gap. Brand has said in an interview: “She fully loves me for what I am. She’s not interested in the famous person at all”. The pair married in Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire in 2017, in an intimate ceremony with guests including Noel Gallagher, Jonathan Ross and David Baddiel. They moved into a £3.3m house in Oxfordshire, had three children – two girls, aged around 10 and eight, and a boy born in 2023 – and have apparently embraced a quiet lifestyle, rooted in spirituality and creativity. Laura Brand previously said that her husband “meditates twice a day, morning and evening, without fail for 20 minutes; it’s the biggest part of his self-care routine”. The couple in Los Angeles, 2018. The pair married in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, the previous year (Photo: Bauer-Griffin/GC Images) Russell spoke about being a father after the birth of his first daughter, Mabel, in 2016: “She’s so beautiful and so glorious and so full of joy and love.” In an interview with The Telegraph in 2022, Laura spoke warmly about her husband’s role as a father, saying that he was amazing at “engaging their imaginations when we’re on a walk. He’s naturally very playful, and so good at storytelling it becomes like an immersive story time. And then if he spots something in nature, he’ll say, ‘Can Mummy tell us about this, because she really knows about all this’, and it’s my cue to describe something I’ve researched.” In the same interview, she said they enjoy date nights with a takeaway on top of a canal boat at the bottom of their garden and love animals, keeping piglets and chickens on their land. In 2019, however, Russell revealed in an interview that he had never looked after his daughters on his own for 24 hours. “Laura does all of it,” he said. “I am dedicated to it, devoted to it, but I am still surprised when it’s like, ‘Oh my God this is f**king really hard and it’s so exhausting’.” They lead an increasingly private existence, and in 2024 the couple moved to Florida, where they live in a $1m bungalow. Having converted to Christianity, he has been embraced by the American Right, and was presented the “Global Defender of Freedom” award at a black-tie gala at Mar-a-Lago. How his Surrey-born wife is settling into life in the “Hamptons of the South” is anyone’s guess. She has been able to keep an even lower public profile since their move stateside. But this week, she made an unusual appearance in two of her husband’s social media posts, nodding along as he told his followers “they own your consciousness”. And now, after walking with him into court, making it clear she plans to stand by him, scrutiny is only set to increase. The trial is expected to last 10 weeks.