I didn’t know comedian John Bishop had his own talk show? I love Bishop – I’m so excited to have this information. Anyway, he does and recently interviewed Russel Brand who spoke about what happened in his marriage with Katy Perry. I find Brand wildly entertaining as an artist and I like a couple of Perry’s songs, but they both fall under the “don’t scratch too far below the surface” category for me. That includes their relationship. I know they have taken stabs at mud-slinging and feeble attempts at playing nice. But for all our theories, we don’t know what happened, exactly. In the Bishop interview, Brand attempts to contextualize it and, to his credit, he is diplomatic but still doesn’t assume responsibility. According to Brand, it was her fame that killed the love story, not his open disdain for everything she stood for.

Russell Brand still has a special place in his heart for ex-wife Katy Perry. The comedian, 41, reflected on his short-lived marriage to the pop star, 32, in an interview for the W Channel’s John Bishop: In Conversation With on Thursday, March 30.

Noting that Perry was “obviously very, very occupied and very busy” and that he was “occupied and busy [though] not to the same degree,” Brand said it was difficult to safeguard their relationship from “external influences.”

“There’s the declaration that we are together, in front of people. There was a ceremony, people are invited — that is the point of a wedding ceremony — but in the end there is a kind of intimacy where you acknowledge it’s just the two of us,” he explained. “And I suppose perhaps we intuitively or explicitly, I don’t know, understood that we’d better protect this thing.” 

Unfortunately for their marriage, the pressures of fame ultimately took a toll. “Now, like, obviously the marriage didn’t last for a very long time, and I think that is to do with the undulated nature of fame and that living in those conditions and what was happening,” Brand continued.

[From US]

From the start, they were very different people in very different places. But that’s just it – it was that way from the start. It sounds like when Brand took those vows, he shifted his view from really digging his S.O. to realizing they were a legally bound pair, like he saw her through a different lens. By example, Brand said to Bishop, “But it meant, I think, that [for] the sanctimony of marriage, which is a very private thing really… the declaration that we are together in front of people… in the end there is an intimacy that you acknowledge ‘right, there’s just the two of us’…I supposed we perhaps—intuitively or explicitly I don’t know—understood that we better protect this thing.” I know couples like this – they woke up the day after they married and saw the person next to them in a whole new way. It’s poor timing but not uncommon.

Later in the interview, Brand said of Perry, “I still feel very warm towards her. I feel like, when I hear about her or see her, ‘Awe, there’s that person. There’s that person in the world.’” This I believe. I think Brand has had another shift in his vision after becoming a father and the fact that he can look on Perry with affection is nice. It would be lovely if Perry could do the same but I’m not too high on her right now so I won’t hold my breath.

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