Hugh Grant is adamant his crusade for a review of press standards in the U.K. is not fueled by bitterness over his public humiliation after he was caught with a $60 -a-time hooker.
The Notting Hill star made headlines all over the world when he was arrested in 1995 after paying prostitute Divine Brown for oral sex in his car on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard.
Grant has fiercely protected his privacy ever since the scandal, and has been one of the leading campaigners for a reform of the British press since the News of the World phone hacking outrage erupted earlier this year (11).
A public inquiry into the issue is underway in London, and Grant made an appearance before the committee on Monday (21Nov11), during which he denied being motivated by a desire for revenge over his public vilification.
Grant told the hearing, "I think it's an important point to make that all the questioning and campaigning I have done recently about what I see as the abuses by some sections of the British press is emphatically not motivated by the treatment I got when I was arrested in 1995.
"I was arrested. It was on public record. I totally expected there to be tons of press, a press storm, and I had no quarrel with it. None whatsoever."
Tagged in Hugh Grant