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Hugh Grant made light of his 1995 arrest for lewd conduct on Thursday, while introducing his new film, Heretic, at a screening in LA.
The Notting Hill actor, 64, appeared at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Thursday to celebrate his upcoming thriller, playing the mysterious Mr Reed, who lures Paxton and Barnes (Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher) into his house after they try to convert him.
He traps the pair and subjects them to a series of torturous psychological games in a bid to win their freedom from his house of horrors.
Celebrating the movie at a screening this week, directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods invited the Hollywood favorite to say a few words, but no one predicted quite where he would go with the opportunity.
‘I have nothing interesting to add to that except that it is very nice to be here,’ he told the gathered crowd, in a video shared by the Hollywood Reporter.
‘Hollywood Boulevard has always been a lucky place for me…’
Hugh paused as the audience – and his directors and co-stars – were left in stitches over his remarks.
‘It’s nice of AFI to have us,’ he continued, getting back on track. ‘It’s nice of you to show up. It was nice of these girls to be so brilliant in the film. It was nice of these two weirdos to put me in it and nice of the producers to pay me so little.
‘I hope you enjoy it.’
The Love Actually icon was famously arrested nearly 30 years ago while on Sunset Boulevard, in LA.
He was taken into custody for lewd conduct after being found with a sex worker, while he was dating actress Elizabeth Hurley.
On the night in question, he was followed by Hollywood vice squad police officers who saw Divine brown get into his BMW.
He pleaded no contest to lewd contact in court and was ordered to pay $1,180, and was put on probation for two years.
Hugh has been open about the incident and previously explained that it happened after he watched his romantic comedy, Nine Months, at a screening.
During an appearance on the WTF podcast with Marc Maron in 2021, he recalled: ‘The film was about to come out a week or two after that, and I had a bad feeling about it. I went to see a screening.
‘Everyone in it was brilliant, but I was so atrocious that I was not in a good frame of mind.’
‘I had a Ken Russell kind of lunch, and one thing led to another.
‘I was just disappointed in myself. I don’t know what was going on.’
He also commended Drew Barrymore for privately reaching out when the news broke, thanking her for being so supportive at a time when others in the industry may have turned their backs.
‘Oh my God, you did, you were so nice! It was during the dark days of my Divine Brown scandal, I was just an idiot. I was a grown-up idiot who got caught by the police,’ he told her on the Drew Barrymore Show.
‘I was back in England with 5,000 members of the press around the borders of my farm and I opened a letter, from you, that was very supportive and nice, and it was very cheering up and I thought, “I love Drew Barrymore.”
‘Words of support from an actress I didn’t know in Hollywood was lovely, so, you will always have a place in my heart.’
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