Hugh: I won’t comment on sex harassment... there’s murk in my past
HUGH Grant says he cannot comment on the Hollywood sex scandals – because he has ‘murk in his past’.
When asked about the revelations of ‘inappropriate sexual behaviour by powerful men’ in cinema and theatre, the 57-year-old actor hesitated and said he felt unable to ‘pontificate’ because of his own actions.
‘When it comes to sexual ethics I don’t want to be the person to pontificate’, he told Radio 4’s Front Row on Wednesday evening. ‘There’s murk in my past.’
Grant, then 34 and dating Liz Hurley, hit the headlines when he was caught in a car with a prostitute by police in Los Angeles in 1995, the year after he had found worldwide fame in the romantic comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral.
He was arrested for indecent conduct with 23-year- old sex worker Divine Brown. Grant subsequently pleaded no contest to the charges and was given two years’ probation. He was also ordered to pay £760 and complete an Aids education programme.
Asked on Front Row about the current scandal surrounding Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual assault and rape by a number of women and is facing several criminal investigations, Grant said: ‘As a general rule, and this isn’t a very daring thing to say, sexual harassment should have zero tolerance in whatever form, anywhere. In whatever country, in whatever business.
‘My hat goes off to those women who are brave enough to speak out at least on the Weinstein thing.’ Presenter Samira Ahmed told him: ‘You’re honest and yet I feel there’s a lot you’ve learnt not to say’, to which Grant quipped: ‘We live in a world of bear traps.’
Grant, who stars in the Paddington 2 film which is out today, admitted last year to CBS that the 1995 incident was ‘seedy behaviour’ but maintained it had not harmed his career because ‘Hollywood only minds about money... As long as you make them money, they don’t care what you get up to.’
He won a Golden Globe and Bafta for his role in Four Weddings And A Funeral, and went on to make the hit films Notting Hill, Sense And Sensibility, About A Boy, Love Actually, the Bridget Jones movies and this year’s Florence Foster Jenkins.
Grant continued to date Miss Hurley, now 52, for 13 years until 2000. He has never married but has four children by two women.
He has a son and daughter with receptionist Tinglan Hong and two sons with Swedish TV producer Anna Eberstein.