Grant told the paper that he became suspicious after he’d report a crime to the police, only to have a journalist show up at his door before any cop:

Corrupt policemen tipped off journalists about celebrity victims of crime before other officers had time to respond to their calls for assistance, the actor Hugh Grant claimed yesterday.

In an escalation of the allegations facing the police Mr. Grant told The Independent he had personal experience of reporting crimes and discovering the first person who turned up on his doorstep was a tabloid journalist.

Mr. Grant suggested he would be raising the issue when he is called to give evidence before Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry into phone hacking.

Grant added that the public will soon “learn about the true nature of the Prime Minister’s relationship with the Murdoch organization. What I hear on the Cotswold grapevine is that the relationship was sinisterly cozy to a deeply unhealthy and unattractive degree.”

Of course, the instances of phone-hacking by News International properties aren’t limited to celebrities. The Guardian is reporting that Shaun Russell, father of a young girl who survived a hammer attack that resulted in the deaths of her mother and sister, is among those suing News International for alleged hacking, bringing the total number of claims to 63 ahead ahead of January, when a few test cases will be tried in order to determine just how much News International should pay in damages to five of its phone-hacking victims.

h/t The Independent

The editorial, published on the 16th in Australia, depicts the Murdoch scandal as a “crusade” against free speech, beginning with a litany of complaints and celebrations from enemies of News of the World, only to declare that the “excitable hacks” comparing the scandal to the fall of the Berlin Wall and other major events “do a grave injustice to the freedom-hungry masses of yesteryear by lumping their struggles in with the media-led agitation against Murdoch. For no amount of shameless plundering of past democratic moments can disguise the fact that what we are witnessing in Britain is a media coup led by a tiny gaggle of illiberal liberals.”

Who, precisely, falls in this gaggle? Brendan O’Neill, the piece’s author, spares no names. In fact, perhaps the most scorching (and personal) bit of the editorial is the following paragraph on the enemies of News of the World in Britain:

The two politicians at the forefront of the crusade are John Prescott, former Labour deputy prime minister, and Chris Bryant, Labour MP. It can’t be a coincidence that both have been badly burned by Murdoch tabloids, finding their extramarital affairs (Prescott) or their penchant for posing in their Y-fronts on gay-sex websites (Bryant) splashed across their pages. Likewise, one doesn’t need a degree in political science to see why Hugh Grant has transmogrified overnight from floppy-haired actor into a one-man army against tabloid hacks: he’s never forgiven them for the fun they had at his expense after he indulged in certain roadside larks with a hooker in Los Angeles in 1995.

But the editorial doesn’t stop at attacking those who O’Neill claims to have personal vendettas against Murdoch, a list which also includes the editorial board at the New York Times and several other prominent politicians. This is not just a personal tiff. To O’Neill, it is a fight for free speech.

These self-interested crusaders may pose as warriors against alleged criminality in the tabloid press, but their true target is the culture of the tabloid press, the age-old arts of muckraking and sabre-rattling, which they consider vulgar and offensive. Under the guise of ending illegal phone-hacking, they’re really pursuing a culture war against what they view as the ugly, mass, populist media.

O’Neill concludes warning against the “homogenisation of the press, the straitjacketing of journalism, the enforcement of middle-class moral conformism.” In case it isn’t already clear, nowhere in the piece does O’Neill say anything about the rights of those being hacked, or of the corrupt relationship between the police and News of the World. Only in passing is there a reference to phone hacking, which O’Neill describes as a “guise.”

O’Neill may have a point that personal animosities may lead many who are currently after Murdoch down the witch hunt path, and of course a free press is integral to the health of any democracy. But the personal animosities do nothing to explain away the pain of the family of Millie Dowler, who thought their teenage girl may be alive thanks to the News of the World illegally deleting her voicemails. It does nothing to explain what those reporters thought they were doing snooping through the phones of victims of the September 11th attacks. And, most importantly, it does nothing to made Rupert Murdoch and his troubled enterprise appear more relatable or sympathetic to a global audience that has been given little evidence that News Corporation and News International deserves nothing but scorn for their work in the UK.

[h/t]

Jim Pinkerton assessed the situation and said the people who hacked the phones for Murdoch’s British newspapers shouldn’t be called journalists. Pinkerton also concluded, “in the annals of damage control [Murdoch's response] is pretty good,” given that the News Of The World was shut down, executives have left the company and Murdoch will testify in front of the British government.

Yet Colmes and Cal Thomas sparred about whether or not the “liberal media” was making a larger case out of the scandal than it should be. Thomas argued the coverage has been “the biggest case of piling on [because] the Left has been out to get News Corp., especially Fox News Channel and the Murdoch family for years.” Colmes reminded Thomas that even Republican Congressman Peter King is calling for an investigation of News Corp. in America.

And Colmes replied “there has to be personal responsibility and stop blaming the Left and the liberal media like it’s the liberal’s fault that this happened.” Thomas insisted that commentators like MSNBC’s Martin Bashir have been so over the top, while others seem to be covering the story with glee. Yet Colmes preferred to listen to that “famous” political analyst Hugh Grant who voiced his appreciation for the fact that British politicians are no longer competing to suck up to Murdoch. Although host Jon Scott delicately reminded Colmes that Grant is no “paragon of morality” given his own checkered past.

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

Grant has been one of the most vocal celebrities piling on Murdoch’s media empire, and yesterday he (along with newspaper columnist Jemima Khan) filed a lawsuit against the police. The Metropolitan police have been implicated in the phone hacking scandal because of allegations that officers were bribed to give tabloid editors private information on celebrities and politicians. Grant’s lawyer has yet to comment on the suit.

Meanwhile, Grant is continuing to speak out on Murdoch, following his comments Wednesday that British politicians are “terrified” of Murdoch because of his influence on the media, and specifically acknowledged his previous involvement with News Corp. He admitted that he now regrets starring in the 1995 film Nine Months, because it was distributed by 20th Century Fox.

“It would certainly stick in my craw to work for Fox. I did make one film for them 16 years ago but I was naive then. I didn’t even know who owned [the studio].”

(Though given the film’s IMDB rating, it’s not hard to believe that all the actors involved with the project now regret being in it.)

Because of his constant piling on News Corp. in the past few months, Grant acknowledges the chances of him getting to do a film for 20th Century Fox are slim to none, but he told Entertainment Weekly, “It doesn’t bother me at all… I’m not wildly ambitious to make lots of films at the moment anyway.”

Grant’s last film role was in 2009′s Did You Hear About the Morgans?, and his next is in the 3D animated film The Pirates! Band of Misfits, scheduled to be released next March. However, if Grant is looking for any good acting roles, he might want to consider playing himself in the eventual film adaptation of this whole scandal.

After all, you know it’s coming. This is the kind of scandalous tale that Hollywood practically eats up. And just the thought of a poster reading “HUGH GRANT AS… HUGH GRANT” is enough to make Hollywood executives drool at the thought of making this the biggest scandal-driven movie since All the King’s Men. (Except with more sex.)

He’s the guy many Americans know as the sweet and adorable British prime minister from romantic comedies, and now he’s the face of the U.K.’s outrage over the phone hacking scandal engulfing Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp–Hugh Grant, who this morning told NBC’s Matt Lauer that one of the reasons the hacking of celebrities, politicians and others went on for years is that the government lived in fear of Murdoch’s power. “He had the power through his papers to get them elected, and his paper knew dirty details about individual MPs and so they were unwilling ever to take him on.”

Grant, who was a phone hacking victim himself, described a culture where reporters used any means necessary to get exclusive stories, police were paid off, and politicians chose access to Murdoch over investigating what was happening at his newspapers:

Only three weeks ago, all our major politicians in this country were sucking up to Rupert Murdoch and drinking champagne on his lawn at his summer party, and so it’s almost comic that today in Parliament they’re all competing to say he’s a terrible person.

Watch it here, from NBC:

Oliver detailed the collapse of News of the World one step at a time, with Stewart challenging him every step of the way with American media travesties, like Casey Anthony being paid by ABC News for exclusives, but he couldn’t win against what the News of the World had been doing. “Do you know how hard it is to disgrace a British tabloid?” Oliver asked, reminding Stewart that News of the World had gotten away with plenty before, including “a crusade against pedophiles [that] led to attacks on the home of a pediatrician.”

But this time, they had hacked into the phones of 9/11 victims, soldiers who had been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and missing teenagers, all to find a possible story. They had corrupted the police, and built ties with Prime Minister David Cameron. And the man to uncover the organization’s pervasive corruption? For Oliver, that may have been the worst news of all– England now deferred to Hugh Grant as a moral compass.

The segment via Comedy Central below:

Part 2

First Grant went over the story as well as some of his most disturbing findings:

“[McMullen told me] how high, extensive, industrial-scale phone-hacking went on at News of the World, particularly under Andy Coulson, how it wasn’t just the News of the World, it was all the tabloids, how money regularly passed hands between News International and offices of Metropolitan Police, how Margaret Thatcher was the first prime minister to realize it was very hard to get elected in this country without the backing of the Murdoch press. So she was the first one to become an undignified sycophant to that organization, to that media tycoon, a pattern that’s been followed by every Prime Minister since including the current one.”

McMullen was then brought on and, while the conversation seemed relatively friendly at first (McMullen joked that the only thing missing from Grant’s story was that he still owed him money for the drinks), the sparks started flying when McMullen defended the practice of phone hacking.

“You should try real journalism,” Grant said. “Because you’re not an idiot. You could probably do it.”

Grant is set to testify in the case.

Watch the clip from the BBC below:

(h/t Hollywood Elsewhere)

This news follows soon-debunked rumors that Rob Lowe would leave the poorly rated but critically acclaimed Parks and Recreation for the highly rated and also highly rated pastures of the Harper brothers’ wacky bachelor pad. Grant fits squarely in the Sheen and Lowe mold of “incredibly charming actor who has had his share of tabloid-friendly scandals in the past” however the actor apparently decided he’d rather stick to films. Or perhaps because $600,000, while ridiculously high, is still only a third of what Sheen was getting. Or perhaps because continuing Two and a Half Men at this point is almost certainly an idea destined for colossal failure.

Anyway, network upfronts, an antiquated event where the different broadcast networks showcase their upcoming schedules to advertisers and affiliates, is next week so we should have Lorre’s replacement strategy explained to us in just a couple of days. What won’t be explained is how the show plans on solving all of the intricate plot threads left dangling since Sheen’s departure.

…yeah, just kidding.

(h/t The Daily Beast via Soup)

For the uninitiated, the News of the World phone hacking scandal centers on a series of events relating to the News of the World’s illegal access to the mobile phone messages of a variety of people of interest to the newspaper. Or as Wikipedia sums up: “They claimed it was in the public interest for people to know the supposed ‘truth’ about various celebrities, politicians and royalty. Whilst some accusations were at least partly true, many of the calms were of dubious credibility and based on hacked voice mail and text messages.”

Charges led to two arrests earlier this week, and now the story takes another, bizarre turn. New Statesman reports:

More than that, he was Paul McMullan, one of two ex-NoW hacks who had blown the whistle (in the Guardian and on Channel 4′s Dispatches) on the full extent of phone-hacking at the paper, particularly under its former editor Andy Coulson. This was interesting, as I had been a victim – a fact he confirmed as we drove along. He also had an unusual defence of the practice: that phone-hacking was a price you had to pay for living in a free society. I asked how that worked exactly, but we ran out of time, and next thing we had arrived and he was asking me if I would pose for a photo with him, “not for publication, just for the wall of the pub”.

I agreed and the picture duly appeared in the Mail on Sunday that weekend with his creative version of the encounter.He had asked me to drop into his pub some time. So when, some months later, Jemima asked me to write a piece for this paper, it occurred to me it might be interesting to take him up on his invitation.

I wanted to hear more about phone-hacking and the whole business of tabloid journalism. It occurred to me just to interview him straight, as he has, after all, been a whistleblower. But then I thought I might possibly get more, and it might be more fun, if I secretly taped him, The bugger bugged, as it were.

The full article is only available in print, but you can a fuller excerpt at the New Statesman website. Cheerio!

(H/T Micki Maynard)

Don’t get too excited, fans of delightful British romantic comedies. Matthews only used a couple of seconds from the movie. And he didn’t even use the scene where the little girl sings the Mariah Carey song and then points at the little boy but is actually pointing at everyone and it’s so adorable and OH MY GOD!

Excuse me. The scene in question involved sleazy Bill Clinton/George W. Bush hybrid Billy Bob Thornton bossing around Tony Blair stand-in Hugh Grant with a “prickish comment” (Matthews’ words). It’s a fun scene, and this was a fun segment, so I’m not really going to question why exactly it was needed. I don’t agree with Matthews on everything, but clearly we have similar tastes in movie quotes. As well as in the importance of shoehorning in references to movies you like just because you feel like it.

Check out the entire, goofy segment from MSNBC below. The Love Actually bits start around the two and a half minute mark:

He gets off to a questionable start when he bemoans men “defecting from the meritocracy:”

The Pew Research Center reports that 28 percent of wives between ages 30 and 44 have more education than their husbands, whereas only 19 percent of husbands in the same age group have more education than their wives. Twenty-three percent of men with some college education earn less than their wives. In law, medical, and doctoral programs, women are majorities or, if trends continue, will be.

One might look at that and think, “Wow – good job, women.” George Will did not think this. In fact, there seems to be a bit of “Oh-God-no-women-are-taking-over” undercurrent here, even if, as is likely, he didn’t mean for there to be. Also, “twenty-three percent” – is that really a cause for alarm of some kind? (Taking that a step further, is a subset of men earning less than their wives a cause for alarm either?) And re: his last point, he’s getting all worked up about something that 1) hasn’t even fully happened yet; 2) again, doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. The problems continue when he talks about marriage:

In 1956, the median age of men marrying was 22.5.

I’m 22. Trust me: 22.5 is too young. Also: entirely different era. Some more fun with numbers:

A recent study found that 55 percent of men 18 to 24 are living in their parents’ homes, as are 13 percent of men 25 to 34, compared to 8 percent of women.

18 to 24? Isn’t that awfully young to start getting judgmental? A lot of those parents’-home-dwellers on the younger end of that spectrum are kids commuting to college, no? Remember, college? The thing he was just saying not enough guys are going to? And…18? Forget college, most people are still in high school at that age. And the wheels are about to fall off.

If you wonder what has become of manliness, [Penn State historian Gary Cross] says, note the differences between Cary Grant and Hugh Grant, the former, dapper and debonair, the latter, a perpetually befuddled boy.

Ah yes, Cary Grant and Hugh Grant. Very analogous. You can tell by the “Grant”s. Another instructive example: think of the differences between Theodore Roosevelt and this delicious roast beef sandwich. One was our 26th President, a Rough Rider, a passionate hunter – a true man’s man. The other? None of these! What is happening to manhood? OK, so Cary and Hugh are both handsome leading men, they’re both English-born – but wouldn’t, say, George Clooney be a better modern-day Cary Grant comparison as far as suaveness, dapper-ness, etc. is concerned? Or would that just defeat the purpose of the comparison?

Permissive parenting, Cross says, made children less submissive, and the decline of deference coincided with the rise of consumer and media cultures celebrating the indefinite retention of the tastes and habits of childhood. The opening of careers to talented women has coincided with the attenuation of male role models in popular culture: In 1959, there were 27 Westerns on prime-time television glamorizing male responsibility.

There is probably more “permissive parenting” than ever today, yes. How that directly segues into talking about how there aren’t any Westerns on TV anymore to tech men how to be real men is anyone’s guess. Just another bizarre paragraph in an increasingly confounding article.

>>>NEXT: Just about everyone is ruining George Will’s ideal vision of a man.

Strangely, it was hard to come up with women for this list! Paris Hilton was a last-minute addition — if you can think of any let us know and we will happily add: women screw up too. Also interesting to note is how many of these apologies occur on late night television; Letterman also joins an esteemed list there, too, though up until last night he was on the other side of the couch. With that in mind, we bring you our Top Ten Public Apologies — from nappy-headed hos to “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!” to Hugh Grant, the standard bearer of late night apologies, relive all your famous oh-no-they-didn’t breaking news moments. No doubt there will be more.

NEXT: Men Behaving Badly