Russell Brand has said a documentary that made allegations about his behaviour had a "devastating" effect on him, and made friends and colleagues turn against him.
The entertainer began giving evidence on Wednesday as his defence case got under way at his trial at Southwark Crown Court in London.
Brand, 51, is accused of three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one charge of attempted indecent assault.
The allegations, made by six female complainants, span a 10-year period between 1999 and 2009. He denies all the charges.
Asked whether consent was important to him, he told the court: "Consent is fundamental, essential, necessary and indeed in many ways more important than sex itself."
After Brand entered the witness box on Wednesday morning, defence barrister Ian Winter KC began by taking him through the indictment, asking him if he had committed the offences.
After each question, Brand replied "no" loudly towards the jury.
Brand was then asked about a documentary that aired in 2023, which included some allegations against him.
Asked by Winter what impact the documentary had had on his friends and colleagues turning their backs on him, Brand said: "It was devastating."
Winter questioned whether Brand had been able to persuade any friend or acquaintance who might have been able to give evidence on his behalf to appear in court.
Brand replied: "I have not." Winter asked: "Will they touch you with a bargepole?" Brand said: "No."
Brand also claimed in court that he was told he could not stay with his son at Great Ormond Street hospital in London when the child was having open heart surgery, following the documentary and a newspaper investigation.
He told the court: "Due to material that had been published in the public eye they had to bar my attendance and presence.
"They were unclear about what legal reason there was but that was the reason they gave to my wife Laura and I."
Brand told the court: "My entire life has been consumed by these allegations," adding that he had "devoted myself to these matters".
Winter asked Brand if he recalled meeting the first complainant, who alleges he raped her at the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth in 1999.
Brand said yes, explaining that he found her "loquacious" and "interesting".
When asked if there was any truth in the allegations that he raped her, he said: "No."
Under cross examination, the prosecution suggested Brand "just didn't care whether she was interested in having sex with you or not". Brand rejected that, saying he did care "very much".
Asked whether he was sure he "didn't think no means yes", he replied: "I know what no means."
Brand was then asked about another woman, who alleges that the entertainer grabbed her breasts before dragging her into a toilet and raping her.
Brand said he recalled been invited to a party in London at a bar in 2004, and said a friend had introduced him to the complainant by saying "something like 'there's a bird here who really wants to meet you mate'."
When asked if he remembered what he said to her upon meeting, he told the court: "I would have said something like, 'You're really, really beautiful'."
The barrister asked whether he had grabbed her breasts. "Absolutely not," Brand replied.
When questioned if he would have behaved in the way that had been alleged, he said it would have amounted to "disgusting behaviour".
"I was increasingly focused on my promiscuity," he said. "That's not the way I would have behaved because it's not only criminal but vulgar."
Brand said he remembered going into the toilet with her but said "no" when asked if he had dragged or forced her there.
"Did your penis enter her mouth at all whilst in the cubicle?" Winter asked. "No," said Brand.
Another complainant, who worked at MTV, alleges that Brand tried to drag her into a toilet at work in 2001.
At the time, he was one of the channel's star presenters. She said she managed to wrench herself away.
Asked if he had intended a non-consensual sexual encounter, Brand told the court: "Absolutely not."
In relation to another woman, who accuses Brand of anal rape, he said he remembered her being in his dressing room at the Hammersmith Apollo theatre in London in 2009 after his comedy show.
He said after a "memorable" sexual encounter, he contacted her again to try to meet, adding: "I was excited and enthusiastic about it."
Brand also said he had saved her number in his phone using a code, saying: "That was what I used to denote casual hook-ups and women I met I could hook up with."
After inviting her to his house in Hampstead, he said they had consensual sex in his room.
When asked if he committed anal rape, he said no. When asked if she had asked him to stop, he said no.
Asked by the prosecution later if his memory was "a little selective" in what he could remember, Brand replied: "No."
The prosecution suggested Brand only remembered certain parts of his encounters after being interviewed by the police and viewing the women's evidence.
"You saw the evidence and started to remember. You pretended you couldn't remember the encounters until the police found photos and negatives," the prosecution said.
Brand denied that was the case and said he was straining every sinew to recall distant events but was struggling to do so.
He was also asked on Wednesday about his wedding to singer Katy Perry in October 2010 and whether it brought a "sea change" to his life. He said the marriage brought him "staggering fame".
Being cross examined, Brand agreed with the prosecution's suggestion that he blamed Channel 4 documentary programme Dispatches for the allegations.
Asked if the media had been fair to him, Brand said he "would reject that suggestion strongly".
Under intense questioning from prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC, Brand denied pretending to be gay in his pursuit of women, after one of the complainants said they assumed he was gay and that she had felt "sexually safe with him".
Brand also told the jury he had an obsession with sex as a younger man but denied giving himself a "goal" to sleep with 5,000 women.
The comedian's former friend and flatmate, Mark Pinheiro, previously told the jury that Brand had boasted on a car journey to the Labour Party conference in 1999 about his techniques for "pulling" women and allegedly revealed an ambition to sleep with 5,000 women.
Asked about the alleged claim, Brand told the jury: "While I don't remember, it's entirely possible it's the kind of badinage [banter] I would have engaged in when I was 24."
Brand admitted he was "obsessed" with sex in his younger years but denied the extent of the impact on his life.
From the witness box, he said consent was "non-negotiable".
You can follow the trial day by day on the BBC podcast Russell Brand on Trial – available on BBC Sounds, YouTube, iPlayer, or wherever you get your BBC podcasts
Fox Style News Syndicate. Sourced from broadcast reporting: Read Full Source Coverage.