David Gest was busy, so we called up the second most famous guy in Britain and asked him if he wouldn’t mind hosting the 2008 VMAs in Hollywood. And he said yes! Very good!

So, now that that’s official, who is Russell Brand? You saw him in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (if you saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall), and he’s more than just Kristen Bell’s scene-stealing rockstar boyfriend AND the funniest part of Forgetting Sarah Marshall (again, if you saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall) besides the naked opera (sorry to spoil that). He’s also a comedian — or “comic,” as they say in England — a former MTV UK VJ (so he’s got practice!), actor, and author of My Booky Wook, which was sold the freak out when we tried to buy it in Scotland this past December. Still bitter.

More things you should know about Russell Brand: he’s an even bigger supporter of eyeliner and leather pants than is Fergie. He’s more painfully sharp than sitting on a tack, and he’s about 15 trillion times funnier than lots of the dudes in your favorite frat movies, and/or Jimmy Fallon (sorry, but it’s basically fact), and he’s more potty-mouthed than a ship of angry pirates. (Check out his Wikipedia entry and other commonly used parts of “The Internet” to see all the hilariously inappropriate names he’s called famous people to their faces and the litany of jobs he’s been fired from, also for inappropriate reasons that were probably funny in retrospect and/or if you were there, and/or if you’re Russell Brand.)

He’s also apparently not a virgin and has met Christina Aguilera, though we’re absolutely not implying the two are related in any way.

Also, he earned the prestigious title of GQ’s “Least Stylish Man of the Year” in both 2007 and 2008, though they named him “Most Stylish Man of the Year” in 2006, so clearly they have commitment issues. Oh well. Basically, in England, Russell Brand is bigger than cell phones. You’d be sociallly ostracized for not knowing who he is. He’s like the Tom Cruise of England, except not a wackadoodoo Scientologist.

And as we previously stated, in a post in which he was trumped by a tub of American Idol ice cream, we’d have his babies (Russell’s, not Tom Cruise’s) if he asked nicely, even though they’d have really weird hair. Whatever. The offer still stands.

More to come when we recover from our Jonas/Tokio Hotel-levels of excitement. Until then, read this, and check out these video clips to see his scary-funny LOLs in action: