FOR a man as famed for his insatiable libido as his comedy, celibacy has clearly been an uphill struggle for Thurrock-born comedian Russell Brand.

But at his meeting with our reporter Hannah Stephenson, dressed in trademark skin-tight black trousers tucked into cowboy boots, eyeliner in place and long straggly hair backcombed to chaotic perfection, he proudly declares he's been celibate for 12 whole days.

Hannah takes up the story.

The comedian and TV presenter's frank admission makes me laugh, but he then asks how long he has to abstain from sex for before it isn't funny.

"Six months?" I suggest. "Six months?!" he exclaims incredulously.

It's light-hearted banter, but as Brand has just admitted that he spent three weeks in an American recovery centre for sexual addiction, which he nicknamed Pervs' Prison, 12 days of celibacy is no mean feat.

"I thought it might be good for me to lay off sex for a while and see how it affects me," he muses, adding that he's starting to feel a bit frisky.

Indeed, his bed-hopping antics had begun to threaten his career, just like his previous years of heroin addiction, before he decided to change his life.

Tall, wiry and adorned in Gothic black, Brand looks like a softer version of Edward Scissorhands - without the scissorhands. He is attractive, funny, charismatic and famous, so no wonder he's a babe magnet. But at present he lives on his own with his cat, Morrissey.

He's cagey about his current girlfriend, but says he'd love to start a family.

"There's someone I care about a lot, but I'm taking it slowly. I'd love to have children. I would like to be monogamous, but it's difficult. You keep thinking, Look at that person, I wonder what they're like, let's fall in love with them'. It's not just sex. It's the adventure."

Brand, who was born in Grays where his mum still lives, is now highly sought after as a light entertainment presenter.

He got his big break presenting E4's Big Brother spin-off shows, has a successful Radio Two show with Matt Morgan, recently had his own Channel 4 series, Russell Brand's Ponderland, and also writes a column for the Guardian.

Today, we're here to discuss his autobiography, My Booky Wook. But readers who are hoping for a kiss and tell account of his conquests with such famous names as Kate Moss are in for a disappointment.

"I don't agree with the mentality of being salacious about people having sex. Also, there's so much more stuff that's funnier and more interesting."

The book is deeper than much of the ghost-written fodder which is usually churned out by minor celebrities, and is shrouded in some pretty raucous humour from Brand, an avid West Ham supporter.

Go deeper and you learn about his unhappy childhood, growing up in Grays with his single mother, Barbara, a secretary.

His father walked out when he was six months old and would appear sporadically to take him for the weekend, but that usually involved sitting Russell in front of the TV.

"I know that he did his best. It isn't easy when a relationship's broken down. It probably made me more insular. I retreated into my imagination."

When his mum started seeing another man, it made him feel even more insecure. "I felt like I'd lost my mum a bit. It emphasised the fact that I was the only child of a single mother and made me jealous."

As a youngster, he rebelled and was expelled from several schools.

"I have struggled with any institution I've ever been involved with because I don't much care for regulation."

His childhood angsts probably went some way to prompt several years of self harm and bulimia, which started at around 12.

"I was tubby and wasn't happy with myself or happy at home. I've just got a tendency towards addiction. You don't know about drugs when you're a child, but chocolate, now that's something you can get your hands on."

His addictions progressed to alcohol, cocaine and heroin. He admits he spent the best part of his early career in a drug-induced haze.

Brand caught the acting bug at the age of 15, starring as Fat Sam in a school production of Bugsy Malone, and his performance earned him a council-funded education at the Italia Conti Academy among peers including Martine McCutcheon and former Eternal band members Louise Nurding (now Mrs Jamie Redknapp) and Kelle Bryan.

"It was full of beautiful girls and I'd lost the baggage of my childhood. It was a wonderful place, a shangri-la."

It led to a three-year scholarship at the Drama Centre in London, where, in his spare time, Russell began performing stand up in pubs around London.

His one-man show later received huge acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival and he got a job with MTV, before getting his big break on E4's Big Brother's Big Mouth.

But comedy is where he's most at home. Even now, he loves doing stand-up gigs.

"It feels sometimes that there are facets of my personality that require the presence of an audience to validate them, otherwise it's a bit extreme, craving for expression and wanting to show off and communicate."

Spiralling drug use, however, made Brand increasingly eccentric and difficult to employ. MTV sacked him when he arrived for work the day after the September 11 terrorist attacks dressed as Osama bin Laden.

He'd be offered TV jobs and then go on a drugs bender and end up being dropped. A self- destruct button would go off just as another career opportunity came along.

Eventually, after suffering four years of Russell's heroin addiction, his agent John Noel told him to go to rehab or forget any sort of future.

"I went on an excellent recovery programme, Focus 12, and was really lucky. But it was bloody hard. I didn't know who I was or where I was."

He stayed three months and says that he's no longer tempted, although he's not complacent.

Noel again stepped in to urge him to seek help for his sex addiction in 2005. Brand writes that when he got to the centre in >Philadelphia he thought it was a nuthouse and, to make matters worse, had to share a room with a paedophile.

"I've never felt more English in my life than when I was sat in that American cliche swap shop. They'd say, I hear your pain, it's good that you shared.' And I'd be thinking, Oh do f*** off. For Christ's sake, someone put EastEnders on the telly and get me a glass of gin and a toasted crumpet."

He's still ambitious and hopes to go further down the movie route, having appeared in his first Hollywood movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. There's another one on the cards with Disney which co-stars Adam Sandler.

But he'd prefer to stay with AA and NA than become Addicted to LA.

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