Monetizing Defiance: Ben Roberts-Smith Turns to Branding to Fund His Legal Battles

When Australia’s most decorated living soldier finds himself facing five counts of murder in an Afghan theater of war, traditional crisis management tends to falter. Ben Roberts-Smith has opted for a distinctly modern solution: a commercial lifestyle brand.

Named EPIC 1 TWO—a direct nod to his military call sign during the mission that earned him the Victoria Cross—the venture launched with an Instagram video featuring the 47-year-old strolling along a Gold Coast beach and working out. Audio snippets of past broadcast reports announcing his military honors and subsequent arrest set the backdrop. The narrative is clear: a decorated combatant re-imagined as an unyielding outsider battling institutional pressure.

The financial rationale behind the launch is straightforward. Roberts-Smith asserts that commercial partners are routinely deterred by media scrutiny whenever they offer support, effectively shutting him out of conventional endorsement deals. Creating his own brand offers a direct path to revenue and a focal point for supporters who view his trial as an unfair trial by media. Commentator Peta Credlin and boxer Danny Green were among those offering early encouragement on social media.

Yet the legal reality framing this commercial venture is severe. Arrested in April, Roberts-Smith stands accused of murdering or directing the murder of five unarmed Afghan detainees between 2009 and 2012. Court documents detail three separate operational incidents: the shooting of an amputee and his father at a compound code-named Whiskey 108 in April 2009, the execution of a farmer named Ali Jan during a search for a rogue soldier in September 2012, and the killing of two prisoners near a cornfield in Syahchow later that year.

Roberts-Smith rejects every accusation. In an official statement following his arrest, he asserted that he had “always acted within my values, within my training and within the rules of engagement.” He currently remains out on bail after his father, a former Western Australian Supreme Court judge, posted a $250,000 surety. That bail was recently varied to allow him to attend the opening of Anzac Hall at the Australian War Memorial, ensuring that even as his trial approaches, his public ties to military ceremony remain carefully preserved.

Written by Freya Stensrud freya.stensrud@alpineweekly.com