Four Weddings And A Funeral actor Hugh Grant has claimed he knows the secret to a happy marriage – cheating on your partner.
The unmarried 55-year-old, who has four children from two previous relationships, advised Britons to look to the French for inspiration on matrimonial harmony.
Hugh Grant said humans aren’t made for monogamy (Gareth Fuller/PA)
Speaking to US radio host Howard Stern, he said: “Do I think human beings are meant to be in 40-year-long monogamous, faithful, relationships? No.
“Whoever said they were? Only the Bible or something. No-one ever said that was a good idea.”
Hugh – who has dated a long list of beautiful women including Elizabeth Hurley and Jemima Khan – claimed marriage is in fact “unromantic” and involves “closing yourself off”.
Hugh previously dated Liz Hurley (Michael Stephens/PA)
He continued: “I always admire the French and the Italians who are very devoted to their marriages.
“They take them extremely seriously, but it is understood that there might be other visitors at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. You just never boast about it.
“They never say anything, but that’s what keeps marriages together.
Hugh made a name for himself in rom-coms like Notting Hill with Julia Roberts (PA)
The Notting Hill actor has built his career playing charming characters in rom-coms, but he said there is no contradiction between playing the perfect partner while actually believing marriage leads to “possessiveness, ownership, jealously”.
In the varied interview, Hugh also spoke about being “fat-shamed” by the British press over images that appeared of him topless on the beach.
“But they were right. I looked shocking,” he confessed.
He also explained that he turned down Ashton Kutcher’s role in Two And A Half Men because he couldn’t trust the part without a script, while he rejecting the new Bridget Jones’s Baby movie because he didn’t think the script was good enough.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel