Russell Brand is denying his charges. 

After London’s Metropolitan Police charged the comedian with one count of rape, two counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault for events that transpired between 1999 and 2005, he shared a lengthy statement denying any wrongdoing.

“I’ve always told you guys that when I was young and single, before I had my wife and family, who were just about a shot over there, my beautiful children, I was a fool, man,” he explained in a video shared to X April 4. “I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord. I was a drug addict, a sex addict and an imbecile, but what I never was was a rapist.”

Despite previously admitting that he did not “always treat women well” in an essay for The Guardian published two years after the last alleged incident occurred, Brand—who shares three kids with wife Laura Brand—emphasized that he “never engaged in non-consensual activity.”