Hugh Grant reveals Drew Barrymore sent him a letter of support after 1995 arrest — before they even met
Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant co-starred in 2007's Music and Lyrics — but she actually reached out to him more than a decade before, when he found himself at the center of a scandal and she was a recovering Hollywood wild child.
Grant, 60, revealed on Thursday's Drew Barrymore Show that Barrymore, now 45, sent him a letter of support after he was arrested in 1995 with sex worker Divine Brown — while he was dating Elizabeth Hurley. Barrymore also said they shared a passionate kiss off-camera when they saw one another at a NYC hotspot.
"You were so nice," Grant said about Barrymore's letter after he was arrested for lewd conduct. "It was during the dark days of my Divine Brown scandal, I was just an idiot. I was a grown-up idiot who got caught by the police."
Grant said he was back in England when he received the correspondence with "5,000 members of the press" camped outside his home. "I opened a letter, from you, that was very supportive and nice, and it was very cheering up. I thought, 'I love Drew Barrymore.' Words of support from an actress I didn't know in Hollywood was lovely, so, you will always have a place in my heart."
At that time, Barrymore was in the headlines herself — recently for climbing on David Letterman's desk and flashing him. But she had long been portrayed as the Little Girl Lost — going to clubs with her mom, drinking at 9, smoking pot at 10, cocaine at 12 and being locked in a psychiatric hospital, for 18 months, at age 13 — before landing back on her feet.
"That whole incident I related in my own life," she said of Grant's scandal. "I think that whether it's an actor or politician or anything in between, we expect people to be infallible, perfect, never flawed — and God forbid we do anything in our personal lives that we would like to remain personal... I just had to reach out to you."
That wasn't the end of the dishy talk. Barrymore went on to detail a night they shared a steamy make out session.
"One of the moments that I had the most moxie, and I don't think we've ever talked about this, I walked into I think it was the Waverly Inn," in NYC's West Village. "This was years ago. I had a few drinks, I walked in and I ran into you. And instead of saying hello, I grabbed you by the collar and I fully started kissing you."
She said his expression suggested, "'You've never greeted me that way before,' [but] then you had a second thought and you were like, 'You know, I'm not hating this.' And then we flirted and then it was like, 'OK, bye. See you soon.'"
Grant shared his take on the "bizarre" situation, saying he was "very drunk as well" and with some "very nice but not drunk studio executives" who "were very surprised" by the PDA. "Someone said, 'Oh, there is Drew Barrymore,' I get up to say hi and then we make out for 10 minutes. Then I sit down, and we go on talking about the script."
They've both settled down a bit since those days. Barrymore is divorced from third husband Will Kopelman, with whom she shares two daughters. Grant was married for the first time at age 57 — to Anna Eberstein with whom he shares three children. He also has two children with ex-girlfriend Tinglan Hong.
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