KONY 2012 Founder Jason Russel Discusses Naked Rant On Oprah's Next Chapter (VIDEOS)
Jason Russell, co-founder of the charity Invisible Children, sat down with Oprah Winfrey to discuss his famous naked rant video that went viral in March.
Russell displayed "irrational" behavior after receiving an onslaught of unexpected attention and criticism for his film about the African war criminal Joseph Kony.
"That person on the street corner ranting and raving and naked is not me," he tells Winfrey for the next episode of "Oprah's Next Chapter."
Russell sat down with Winfrey to explain what happened the day he broke down back in March.
Winfrey posted a preview video fo the upcoming interview on her official website. The following is the excerpt:
OPRAH: "What do you remember, Jason?"
JASON: "I remember me flipping off cars."
OPRAH: "Flipping off cars? Like with your..."
JASON: "With both hands. I remember that just like 'doot,' just like a little memory. I remember running around our lemon tree. I remember ..."
OPRAH: "There were reports that you were breaking into cars?"
JASON: "There are reports. 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."
OPRAH: "How did you get your robe off? How do you go from running out with your robe on to your robe off?"
JASON: "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."
JASON: [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."
On March 15, Russell was detained by San Diego police after they received numerous calls about a man running through the streets naked while screaming obscenities. Russell was reportedly held in a psychiatric hold, according to International Business Times.
TMZ was the first website to post the video of Russell's meltdown, showing him running around naked in the street and babbling and pounding the sidewalk.
The Invisible Children organization blamed the breakdown on dehydration, malnutrition and exhaustion in a statement while Russell's wife Danica blamed the irrational behavior on stress.
"This stress reportedly stemmed from the onslaught of criticism Russell, who directed the Kony 2012 video that has garnered more than 83 million hits, has faced since the Invisible Children's Stop Kony campaign took off. We thought a few thousand people would see the film, but in less than a week, millions of people around the world saw it," she said in a statement. "While that attention was great for raising awareness about Joseph Kony, it also brought a lot of attention to Jason and, because of how personal the film is, many of the attacks against it were also very personal, and Jason took them very hard."
Jason Russell's interview on "Oprah's Next Chapter" airs on Sunday, October 7, at 9/8c on OWN.
Watch the preview interview below.
