Inside Russell Brand’s friendship with Bear Grylls: How scandal-hit comic met ex-SAS trooper on his Running Wild show – and invited the ‘poster boy’ for evangelical Christianity to take part in his Thames baptism [Video]

05:16 EDT 08 May 2024, updated 05:32 EDT 08 May 2024

It is perhaps the unlikeliest of friendships, which was formed along the jagged coast of the Hebrides. 

Russell Brand‘s bond with Bear Grylls began when the scandal-hit comic appeared on the former SAS soldier’s Apple TV+ series Running Wild last August.

As the pair sat beside a crackling fire dressed in their Scottish attire wearing no underwear, Grylls lay on the grass and listened intently as Brand opened up about how his addictions could have killed him. 

It was during this heart-to-heart that Brand, 48, touched upon his faith and how he had felt a disconnection from a ‘higher purpose or God’. 

Fast forward nine months, former Buddhist Brand, who lives in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, is following a different path with the help of his new pal. 

Grylls, 49, stood in the Thames next to Brandand his ‘mate Joe’ as the comic was plunged into the dirty waters during …