14 DAY TRIAL // In March this year, KONY 2012 honcho Jason Russell was arrested and held on psychiatric hold for indecent exposure, in what was a much mediated incident at the time. He’s talking to Oprah about it now on Oprah’s Next Chapter.
A preview for this Sunday’s special is available below, while TMZ has obtained a transcript from it.
As the video shows, Oprah will ask all the questions the supporters of KONY 2012 have been asking since the arrest: what happened to cause him to storm out in the street, disrobe and then act in such an erratic fashion?
Russell doesn’t remember all that well what happened but he does insist that it was an “out of body experience” that says nothing about who he really is as a person.
“I remember me flipping off cars. With both hands. I remember that just like ‘doot,’ just like a little memory. I remember running around our lemon tree. I remember…” Russell says.
TMZ was one of the first media outlets to obtain footage of the incident and, indeed, it shows Russell acting quite like a madman, talking to himself, yelling at drivers, applauding, banging his fists on the concrete and laughing out loud to himself.
He hardly remembers any of it, which is why he has a hard time describing his actions during the episode.
“There are reports [of me breaking into cars]. I mean I think I was stopping cars in the street. People said I was laying in the street – it's a busy street – I was laying in the street,” he tells Oprah.
“Again, it's really hard to explain if people who have never had an out-of-body experience, but it really wasn't me. That wasn't me, that person on the street corner ranting and raving and naked is not me, that's not who I am,” Russell insists.
“[I remember] walking around snapping my fingers up and down ... slapping my hands on the ground as hard as I can. Just slapping them on the ground. Talking to myself. Ranting. Raving. Talking about good versus evil, God and the devil. I mean it was just very out of control,” he adds.
From the previews made available, it doesn’t seem like Russell is willing to talk about whether drugs had played any part in his very public and extremely embarrassing meltdown.
However, shortly after it happened, both his rep and his wife denied that he’d taken anything to induce this state, blaming it entirely on dehydration, exhaustion and stress.