Comedian Russell Brand’s appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe talk show on Monday erupted into a bout of passive aggressive versus aggressive. Host Mika Brzezinski and her guest panelists Katty Kay and Brian Shactman began speaking about Brand as if he wasn’t in the studio, which enraged Brand and started an escalating verbal exchange in the course of an eight minute “interview.”
Brand, who appeared on the show to promote his upcoming stand-up comedy tour, was initially complimented by Brzezinski and her guests, before the complimentary dialogue begins to exclude Brand, much to his shock. The events begin just as Brand concludes a tirade against the media taking content out of context. (Ironically, it seems that many of Brand’s remarks during the rest of the interview have been taken out of context by the media.)
As Shactman begins to discuss the difficulty he has with getting past Brand’s English accent when he hears him on the radio in his car, he addresses the Brzezinski and Kay as if Brand isn’t in the room, saying “I find Brand difficult to understand sometimes, but now that he is in the room, I can understand him perfectly.”
Brzenzinksi responds, “Brand is something that I guess you need to experience in person.”
Brand quickly takes offense to being discussed as though he was a scientific specimen, and points out the poor manners of the host and the two panelists, who apologize and briefly correct themselves, before once again talking about him as though he is not sitting next to them in the same room.
What starts as a seemingly light-hearted criticism of the host and the panelists by Brand continues into uncomfortable territory, as Brand begins to attack Brzezinski, Shactman and Kay. He compares Brzezinski’s hair to Princess Diana’s, and criticizes the panelists for the superficiality in regards to their focus on appearance and depth of their commentary.
In a reversal of what he has been observing from his hosts, Brand addresses the camera and speaks about them, saying, “I understand that these people are typically very good at what they do.”
Finally, just before the show cuts to commercial, Brand comments on what he perceives as a suggestive gesture being made by Brzezinski involving a water bottle, advising her to take off her wedding ring before she continues what she had just been doing, embarrassing Brzenzinski.
Image Credit: Eva Rinaldi