Do we like Hugh Grant?
Our score: 8 out of 10. He backed equal marriage, took on the tabloid press at real cost and gave to charity, against a few well-documented grumpy moments and a 1995 guilty plea.
Hugh Grant is the floppy-fringed face of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and the Bridget Jones films. These days he's swapped the charming romantic lead for villains and oddballs, and the horror flick Heretic even earned him a Golden Globe nomination.
He's not a saint. In 1995 he was arrested with a sex worker in Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour lewd conduct charge and got two years' probation. More recently there was the curt 2023 Oscars red carpet chat with Ashley Graham, and a lost-temper moment on the Dungeons & Dragons set that he admitted to and says he apologised for. Jon Stewart also once called him a rude guest, and Grant acknowledged on Twitter he'd behaved badly to a TV producer.
On the harm check, we found nothing nasty. In 2012 he backed the Out4Marriage campaign, saying love is the same for everyone and anyone who wants to marry should be able to. Nothing we read had him pushing conspiracy theories, attacking trans people or cosying up to harmful company. The honest gap: we found little from him specifically on trans issues.
His big crusade is against the tabloid press. In 2018 he settled with Mirror Group Newspapers, which admitted its reporters had intercepted his voicemails, and he gave the damages to the campaign group Hacked Off. In 2024 he settled with The Sun's publisher, which says it admitted no liability, and said he'd give that money to press-reform groups. In January 2025 he called on police and prosecutors to investigate the publisher, which denies his allegations.
When Piers Morgan accused him of taking many millions from Rupert Murdoch to make movies, Grant fired back with a one-word “Bullshit.” He said the last time he worked for a Murdoch-owned company was 1994. That's a bloke who picks his fights and doesn't back down.
On the charity side, Grant gave about £75,000 to the plumbing outfit Depher. In 2024 the BBC alleged its founder had posted faked stories, and the founder denied some claims but admitted mistakes. Grant is the donor, not the one accused, and hadn't commented when that story ran. It's a smudge on a generous gesture, not a stain on him.