Russell Brand Reflects On Parenthood And Katy Perry

Russell Brand still thinks highly of ex Katy Perry five years after they filed for divorce — after just 14 months of marriage.

On an episode of John Bishop's The Conversation airing Thursday, March 30, 2017, Brand, 41, explained that fame and hectic schedules brought the marriage to an end.

"Well, thinking about it now, I must have been conscious on some level that it would be very, very challenging if there were external influences," he admitted. "And Katy was obviously very, very occupied and very busy. I was occupied and busy, not to the same degree, I recognize. It meant, I think, that the sanctimony of marriage, which is a very private thing really ... in the end, there is a kind of intimacy where you acknowledge that it's just the two of us in this thing."

"I suppose we perhaps intuitively or explicitly ... understood that we better protect this thing," he continued. "Obviously, the marriage didn't last for a very long time, and I think that is to do with the undulating nature of fame and living in those conditions and what was happening ...I sort of recognize it as a part of my life that was for a clearly delineated piece of time."

He added, "I have come away from that experience feeling very warm towards her. I feel like, when I hear about her or see her, 'Aw, there's that person. There's that person in the world.'"

That warmth isn't really reciprocated: Perry, 32, told Vogue in 2013, "[Brand is] a very smart man, a magical man and I was in love with him when I married him. Let's just say I haven't heard from him since he texted me saying he was divorcing me Dec. 31, 2011."

Brand previously wasn't so complimentary about the marriage, saying in a trailer for Brand: A Second Coming (2015) — in a segment filmed during his union with Perry, "Oh my f**king God. I'm living this life of the very thing I detest ... vapid, vacuous celebrity."

The funny man also reflected on fatherhood, having welcomed a baby girl named Mabel in November 2016 with fiancee Laura Gallacher.

"[I have a ] candid, plain, all-encompassing love [for my daughter]," he gushed. "Everybody deserves this love. The thing that's been the most spectacular thing is my life is the most ordinary thing in my life. A baby came out, the same experience we all have ... Now, I'm responsible for this human being. This resource of love that you have in you is limitless and everybody is worthy of love."