AKM-GSIJust think of the material Russell Brand is going to be able to mine once he's a dad. The concept of fatherhood may never be the same.
The 41-year-old comedian is expecting his first child with girlfriend Laura Gallacher, according to multiple reports coming out of the U.K.—and while at first that sounded like a rather dicey proposition, we have a feeling, judging by Brand's own words on the subject, that he's going to be the most devoted of parents.
It can be difficult not to think of Brand, the verbose recovered-sex-and-drug-addict who informed Katy Perry via text message that he wanted a divorce and has since become increasingly political, even going so far as to claim mock-responsibility for bringing down the former head of the Labour party.
But the entertainer and author, despite his Lothario reputation and his once-wild ways, is actually on the verge of assuming the role he's been talking about for years.
"I was really into the idea of marriage and having children," he told Howard Stern in July 2012, right around when his divorce from Perry was finalized, the summation being that the two of them just weren't prepared for all that marriage entailed.
And though he did the opposite settling down again post-divorce, Brand's desire to become a dad never really went way, and his thoughts on the subject grew increasingly more serious-sounding over the past few years. Not to mention, he wrote a children's book!
His rep hasn't officially commented either way, but the U.K. tabloids have Brand and Gallacher expecting and engaged—plus, by way of hearsay, he reportedly said "I'm having one of those" to a few hundred people while trying out material in High Wycombe—so here's everything that Brand has said more explicitly about kids and fatherhood as he gears up for the birth:
Any Baby Will Do!: Though Brand opened up post-split about wanting a family, he chalked up the actual reason for his divorce from Perry to"incompatibility." However, the singer also said that he wanted kids right away and she didn't, and when asked about that he jokingly clarified to Wendy Williams, "It didn't have to be ours, I said we can just get one anywhere! One that's just loose in the wild. A free-range one from a farm."
Open to the Idea: "I would like to marry again and have a family," he said after a stand-up gig in London in June 2013, almost a year after the divorce. "I am looking for my future wife. I hope she's kind and sweet and sexually adventurous. I don't ask for much, do I?"
He'll Take a Village: "I don't know if I want to settle down though, but I certainly would like loads of children," Brand told the Belfast Telegraph in November 2014 not long after splitting from Jemima Khan.
Birds and the Bees? Everybody Poops? No Problem: Talking about his kids' book series, which started with an updated, darker (naturally!) version of "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," he also told the Belfast Telegraph, "I have a very comfortable and natural rapport with young children. A lot of the work I've done has been adult, because it's intellectually challenging or puerile and scatological and saucy. I've not really had much access to children. I love kids and when I was a child I felt a bit lost and lonely, and I like the idea of being able to reach into that place of desolation and offer something hopeful and optimistic to children."
Definitely a skill he'll need to utilize as a dad.
Change Starts at Home: "Once we start changing the way children see the world," he said in announcing his book project, "well, we can do all sorts of stuff."
Sharing the Love: "You're joking! Where is she? Tell her I want to see my kid!" Brand cheekily began an interview by joking that he was the father of Australian radio host Fifi Box's baby.
Ready to Roll: "I would really like children. That would be great," he said while going through some new stand-up material just last August, per London's Mirror. Brand also noted, "When I'm in a relationship with a really crazy, intense, pain in the ass woman, the next woman I go, 'F—k that whirly intense formula.' You go on to something meeker, quieter. It's the over-compensation."
So far, so quiet.
Brand reportedly first dated Gallacher all the way back in 2007. He married Perry in 2010, that lasted about 14 months, and afterward he was linked to a handful of women (including Khan, Alessandra Balazs and Isabella Brewster) before rekindling a romance with Gallacher last year.