(London) British actor Hugh Grant reached a financial agreement with the tabloid’s publisher The Sun that he was suing for illegal collection of information, he announced on Wednesday, claiming to have been offered “a huge sum of money”.
Hugh Grant, aged 63, was suing Sunwhose publisher NGN has challenged any illegal process, for “telephone hacking, illegal collection of information, telephone tapping”, recalled the actor on X.
He also accuses him of burglarizing his apartment and bugging his car.
NGN “claims to be completely innocent,” the actor wrote on be brought before the courts,” he added, ironically.
The case was scheduled to go to trial in January 2025.
At a preliminary hearing Wednesday, NGN’s lawyer, Anthony Hudson, said an agreement had been reached “recently.”
The agreement “was made without acknowledgment of liability,” added an NGN spokesperson. “It is in the financial interest of both parties not to pursue a costly trial.”
Hugh Grant said on X that he would have liked to go to trial.
But due to the rules governing civil trials, he explains that he would have had to pay the legal costs of both parties, if the court awarded him damages lower than the amount proposed by NGN.
But the lawyers for NGN, which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s empire, “are very expensive”, he added, citing a cost of almost 10 million pounds sterling ($17.2 million).
The actor said he would donate the money to groups denouncing “the worst excesses of our oligarch-owned press.” Among these groups is Hacked Off, of which he is a board member.
Prince Harry, youngest son of King Charles III, has initiated similar proceedings against NGN. The trial is scheduled for January 2025.
Harry has launched several legal proceedings targeting the methods of certain British media.
In February, his lawyer announced a settlement with the tabloid’s publisher Daily Mirror, MGN, to put an end to prosecutions for illegal collection of information. Harry obtained a “substantial sum”, his lawyer said, without revealing the amount of the transaction.
Exiled in the United States, Harry, 39, feels stubborn resentment towards the tabloid press, which he holds responsible for the death of his mother Lady Di, killed in a car accident in Paris in 1997.