LONDON – Hugh Grant was arrested and questioned by police yesterday after he had allegedly littered the road near his West London house with the contents of a tub of baked beans he had hurled at a photographer. The vicious attack, one of the worst cases of littering in recent Chelsea history, is said to have occurred about 10 o’clock Tuesday morning.
Police in rain gear and carrying riot shields visited Mr. Grant yesterday, acting on a complaint from photographer Ian Whittaker, who claimed that the Notting Hill star had chased him and kicked him before hurling the tub of beans.
The incident began when Mr. Grant, 46, emerged from his Audi, and Mr. Whittaker, 43, who was in the neighborhood on assignment to photograph Mr. Grant’s ex Liz Hurley, asked him for a smile. Mr. Grant, after checking his hair in the driver’s side window, yelled “Sod off, you twit” and began chasing Mr. Whittaker down the street, aiming several kicks and the tub of beans in his direction.
According to eyewitnesses, the effect of Mr. Grant’s hissy fit was risible, but that may not have been the effect he had intended.
“Hugh’s getting tired of making the same romantic comedy over and over,” said Bill Nighy, who appeared with Mr. Grant in the ensemble cast of the romantic comedy Love Actually. “He might have picked his spot to ‘go off’ as a way of demonstrating he’s got the chimes for meatier roles.”
If that’s the case—and if Mr. Grant’s bean rage was carefully scripted—one has to ask why he didn’t hurl something more manly than a tub of baked beans at the photographer, a tin of steak and kidney pie or mushy peas perhaps.
“You’ve got to understand that Hugh is basically a sweet-tempered guy,” said Drew Barrymore, who co-starred with Mr. Grant in the romantic comedy Music and Lyrics. “In his mind a tub of baked beans is a lethal weapon.”
Police declined to say what charges, if any, would be brought against Mr. Grant—or what the sell-by date on the tub of beans was. Under British law, littering with a food product past its sell-by date carries a much stiffer penalty.
One member of the investigating squad did tell THEM Weekly that the laws against littering are so strict in Mr. Grant’s posh district that he might be well advised to plead guilty to a lesser charge of personal assault.
For his part Mr. Grant was taciturn, and still not smiling, when he emerged from the police station yesterday afternoon. When he was asked for a comment, he sneered, “That wanker should count himself lucky I wasn’t talking on my mobile.”
In related news, advocates of bean control quickly seized on the incident, attempting to turn it into a political football.
“The bacon and other animal products in baked beans have been known to trigger similar incidents of rage,” said animal activist Heather Mills McCartney. “Yet British law makes it all too easy for persons to obtain baked beans without any sort of background check.”
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