to think this is not nice of Richard E Grant

[StripesZigZags]

and can't be swept aside as "just a joke".

Interview with him in the Times Style magazine today. He tells the interviewer (Vassi Chamberlain) that he writes a diary every night as if he is writing to his wife. She asks him what the entry about today and their interview would say and this is the end of the article. For context earlier in the article she says that after she asked him a question when he'd finished answering he'd "fire the same" quesiton back at her which is probably how he had the additional information.

Here is the quote:

"What will tonight’s account say, I ask. He bursts out laughing.

He sits up and clears his throat as if he’s about to perform at the Old Vic.

“Astonishingly,” he begins, “the journalist was 4ft 11in.” I stop him right there. I’m 5ft 1in. “She’s 5ft 1in. Her face looks like a roadmap because she had head and neck cancer 14 years ago, which she luckily survived, but because of it she’s not allowed to have plastic surgery. All her girlfriends now look 40 years old but her jawline is hanging around her knees and in ten years she will tie a bow with her dyed hair around her chin in a tight knot and she’ll look like the Queen at Balmoral.”

Ouch."

I read that and thought "what a bitch of a man". I've never really liked him - his Instagram videos where he's constantly smiling with a fake smile that never reaches his eyes always seem ultra insincere as he pontificates about how wonderful the day or the tree or the park is. This really exposes the heart of a person.

I guess everyone him included will try to justify it as a joke but it's very nasty - making the point that her short height is 'astonishing' like some circus freak, her face looking like a road map. I think her finishing 'ouch' was really very understated and kind.

He did not take that photo for the interview with her.

Richard E. Grant has always come across as a prissy queen. Sometimes he’s funny/bitchy in that Kenneth Williams kind of way. That said, he can be gentle, smart, and touching. It’s shitty of him to punch down and says everything about him, and nothing about her. She doesn’t deserve that from him. I hope the resultant publicity and discussions boost her career.

I just feel with regard to him he did ONE role in his life that everyone seems to love ( It’s just dated now) Withnail and nothing of any note since.

But she looks nothing like his description so I think he might have been attempting humour. I’ve never found him funny. But she doesn’t have any of the weird features he described so surely it wasn’t a dig at her.

There’s more than one Richard Grant who’s an actor.

Celebrities need to rely on journalists having some discretion. Journalists who go for the jugular and damage a celebrity's image will be refused access to other celebrities. Celebrity journalists who attack their interviewees will find themselves out of work. No other celebrity, reading this Times interview, will want to be interviewed by her in case she says something that stitches them up.

Lynn Barber was infamous for her psychologically acute interviews that quietly took famous people apart, with the outcome that for years people refused to be interviewed by her.

she says something that stitches them up.

he said something that stitched himself up and he was the one doing the attacking

Who's the other actor ?

I'm pretty sure that there was some kind of joke going on. I worked for years in the red-top media sphere and I never heard a bad word about him. No groping, no boozing, no unpleasantness. Widely liked. Plenty of bad stuff about a number of celebrities you'd probably think were wonderful. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

@Craquedechevalier yes it’s called protecting the talent. It’s an industry standard you protect the talent… hot mic moments would be an example If star
says something not realizing the mic is on you shut the mic down immediately. If star arrives looking like shit or acting like shit or is giving terrible interview you have to protect them by salvaging the interaction into something non damaging .

Yes, a friend, who is a fairly well-known novelist, published a memoir about a period living overseas some years back, and her teenager didn’t want to be in it, so it seemed as if she’d had only one much younger child living with her. I wouldn’t read anything into that.

I can only assume the REG ‘diary’ entry was a joke that didn’t translate.

Oh do tell us ALPACA ... which book ... is it the Miranda Sawyer one as that one is on my list!

And re Mr Grant ... shame on you! This is just so very, very disappointing indeed!

This whole thread is very bizarre, a ridiculous pile on to actor based on a really interesting close to an interview, that perhaps needs clarification for those who don’t understand why he said it…but to say he’s done nothing of any note since Withnail and I, is even more ridiculous than this entire thread.

I really loved How to Get Ahead in Advertising

Why on earth would/should he? His primary concern would be his own child as would most people’s be; the other (presumably adult) child has his own father to advocate for him

Bloody hell. How needlessly cruel. She’s gorgeous, but the fact that he’s commenting on her appearance at all seems deeply inappropriate and just, well, gross. Also, what clunky and opaque writing. I’d expect someone who keeps a diary every day to have a more elegant turn of phrase.

weird.

To me it says I’m not airing my dirty linen in public so I’m giving you a nothing reply.

I agree, they are such exact things, he’s not just plucked that from thin air , he wouldn’t know her from Adam would he to know such specific things.

I think it reads like either:

A. he was making a(bad) joke and it’s been reported out of context or

B. He has mental health issues.

But talking about his abusive, alcoholic father and his mother having sex with another man with him in the car isn’t? He had an abusive, shitty childhood and he openly talks about it, which is actually fair enough, and more people should talk about it and feel comfortable enough to do so.

Or.. hear me out. He can be an arsehole sometimes. It’s not exactly an outlandish theory.

Yes, it’s a bit odd. He’s worked very consistently on tv, stage and film since Withnail, and has lots of award nominations and awards.

Was he being sarcastic as she is clearly very attractive.

I never trusted him

All that gurning online and publishing a book about his wife who he says - was very private!!

One of those professional widow/widowers - see also Esther Rantzen - we cannot comprehend their relationship etc