Hollywood star Hugh Grant settled a privacy case against the U.K. publisher of The Sun after he accused it of burglarizing his home, bugging his car, and taping his phone.
The 63-year-old English actor admitted, at first, he did not want to accept” the “enormous sum of money” he had been offered to settle with News Group Newspapers (NGN), but he realized the trial was likely to be “very expensive,” the BBC reported. NGN has denied the claims.
“News Group are claiming they are entirely innocent of the things I had accused the Sun of doing — phone hacking, unlawful information gathering, landline tapping, the burglary of my flat and office, the bugging of my car, the illegal blagging of medical records, lies, perjury and the destruction of evidence,” Grant said in a lengthy thread on X following the settlement. “As is common with entirely innocent people, they are offering me an enormous sum of money to keep this matter out of court.”
For anyone who has been interested in my lawsuit against the Sun, the news is that I’ve had to settle my claim out of court before it gets to trial. A 🧵…
— Hugh Grant (@HackedOffHugh) April 17, 2024
“I don’t want to accept this money or settle. I would love to see all the allegations that they deny tested in court,” he added. “But the rules around civil litigation mean that if I proceed to trial and the court awards me damages that are even a penny less than the settlement offer, I would have to pay the legal costs of both sides.”
“My lawyers tell me that that is exactly what would most likely happen here,” the “Love Actually” actor continued. “Rupert Murdoch’s lawyers are very expensive. So even if every allegation is proven in court, I would still be liable for something approaching £10 million in costs. I’m afraid I am shying at that fence.”
Grant said that the money had a “stink” about it, noting that he’s “spent the best part of 12 years fighting for a free press that does not distort the truth, abuse ordinary members of the public or hold elected MPs to ransom in pursuit of newspaper barons’ personal profit and political power.”
The “Notting Hill” star said therefore the funds he has received will be “repurposed via groups like Hacked Off into the general campaign to expose the worst excesses of our oligarch-owned press.”
NGN released a statement stating that the undisclosed settlement was reached “without admission of liability” and that it was “in both parties financial interests not to progress to a costly trial,” BBC noted.
Related: Hugh Grant Reveals He’s Thought About Making A Drastic Career Change