Hugh Grant is hitting back at Piers Morgan’s claims that he is a “hypocrite” for working with media mogul Rupert Murdoch in the past.
Earlier this week, the Heretic actor – who gave a testimony during the Leveson enquiry in 2011, and has been a vocal critic of the UK’s tabloid press over the years – was interviewed on Radio 4 about the news that Prince Harry had reached a “substantial” settlement with News Group Newspapers (NGN), the publishers of The Sun and the now-defunct News Of The World.
Hugh reached his own settlement with NGN last year, after accusing reporters hired by The Sun of illegally obtaining information about him.
Piers reposted a clip of the interview on X on Friday morning, branding the Bafta winner a “hypocrite” and writing: “REMINDER: Hugh Grant took many millions of pounds from Rupert Murdoch to make movies for him.”
Within 15 minutes, Hugh had written back, insisting that Piers’ comments were “bullshit”.
“The last time I worked for a Murdoch owned company was in 1994. Which was long before I knew anything about his papers’ methods,” he said.
“Since then I have turned down every single job offer emanating from a Murdoch owned company.”
Piers parted ways with Murdoch’s News UK organisation earlier this month, in a deal that made the former Good Morning Britain host the owner of his web series Piers Morgan Uncensored, which started life as a show on Talk TV.
He and Hugh have repeatedly come to blows in the press over the years, with Piers even “banning” the Bridget Jones’s Diary actor from his former CNN and ITV shows after he claimed: “We don’t need [tabloid newspapers], we don’t want them and the sooner they go out of business the better.”
“Listening to Bishop Hugh Grant [claiming] he wants popular newspapers eradicated. I feel the same about his crap movies,” Piers wrote on X, then still known as Twitter, adding: “Hugh Grant is now banned, in perpetuity, from [Piers Morgan Live] and Life Stories. And anything else I ever do. Tedious little man.”
Hugh is currently in the running for his second Bafta off the back of his latest film, the sinister horror Heretic.