LONDON — Hugh Grant received “an enormous sum of money” to settle a lawsuit accusing The Sun tabloid of illegally tapping his phone, bugging his car, and getting into his home to snoop on him, the actor revealed Wednesday after the settlement was announced in court.

Grant, along with Prince Harry, sued News Group Newspapers and said he settled reluctantly because he could have faced a large legal fee even if he won at trial. If he had been awarded a cent less than the settlement offer, he would have been required to pay legal fees to both parties.

Hugh Grant Says He Got ‘Enormous Sum’ To Settle Suit Alleging Illegal Snooping By The Sun Tabloid

“As is common with entirely innocent people, they are offering me an enormous sum of money to keep this matter out of court,” Grant claimed on the social media platform X. “Even if every allegation is proven in court, I would still be liable for approximately 10 million pounds ($12.4 million) in costs.” I’m afraid I’m shy at that fence.”

The settlement sum was not disclosed. NGN said it accepted no wrongdoing and that the settlement was in both parties’ best interests to avoid a costly trial.

Grant and other claimants allege that between 1994 and 2016, NGN, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, violated their privacy by hiring private investigators to intercept voicemails, tap phones, bug cars and use deception to access confidential information.

Grant claimed in a witness statement that he could never figure out who broke into his fourth-floor flat in 2011. The door had been pulled from its hinges, and the interior appeared to be a battle scene, but nothing was gone. Two days later, The Sun published a story on the inside and “signs of a domestic row.”

He claimed he was shocked to learn that someone working for The Sun had broken into his house and put a monitoring device on his car.

Hugh Grant Says He Got ‘Enormous Sum’ To Settle Suit Alleging Illegal Snooping By The Sun Tabloid

Grant, who had already settled a case against Murdoch’s News of the World for hacking his phone, said he would not go lightly.

“Murdoch’s settlement money stinks and I refuse to let this be hush money,” he told reporters. I have spent the best part of 12 years fighting for a free press that does not distort the truth, abuse ordinary members of the public or hold elected (members of Parliament) to ransom in pursuit of newspaper barons’ personal profit and political power.”

Grant stated that he would donate the money to organizations such as Hacked Off, founded after phone hacking disclosures in 2011 brought down News of the World and prompted a government investigation into illegal press practices. Grant serves on the board of a group dedicated to promoting a free and accountable press.

While the now-defunct News of the World has apologized for hacking the phones of celebrities, politicians, and relatives of deceased soldiers and a murdered schoolgirl, The Sun has resolved claims without admitting guilt.

After Grant’s consent to settle his claims, the Duke of Sussex and 41 others are slated to go to trial in the High Court in January.

The settlement occurred after Justice Timothy Fancourt rejected NGN’s bid to dismiss Grant’s claim in May.

Hugh Grant Says He Got ‘Enormous Sum’ To Settle Suit Alleging Illegal Snooping By The Sun Tabloid

“If true … these allegations would establish very serious, deliberate wrongdoing at NGN, conducted on an institutional basis on a huge scale,” Fancourt wrote. “They would also make a concerted effort to conceal the wrongdoing by concealing and destroying relevant documentary evidence, issuing repeated public denials, lying to regulators and authorities, and threatening those who dared to make allegations or notify intended claims against The Sun.”

SOURCE – (AP)

Henry Cavill is going to be a father!

The 40-year-old Man of Steel star has stated that he is expecting his first child with partner Natalie Viscuso.

At the New York City premiere of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, the Justice League star told Access Hollywood about the joyful news.

Henry Cavill And Girlfriend Natalie Viscuso Expecting First Baby Together

“I’m excited about it. Natalie and I are both quite excited about it. When asked about parenting, Cavill responded, “I’m sure you’ll see a lot more of that.”

Before the interview ended, the reporter mentioned that the movie star would make a “great father.”

“Thank you,” he answered, smiling.

The couple was in New York City on Sunday, April 14. Viscuso wore a fitting black dress and matching boots while holding hands with her partner, who wore a blue jacket over a tan-colored tee, blue trousers, and black shoes.

Henry and his fiancée of more than two years attended the London premiere of the actor’s film Argyll in January. The actor wore a dark blue suit with black buttons and black shoes to the event, while Viscuso wore a floor-length white gown and matching shoes. She also wore a long white and gold coat with horizontal stripes over her outfit.

Henry Cavill And Girlfriend Natalie Viscuso Expecting First Baby Together

Cavill and Viscuso became Instagram officials in April 2021 when they posted photos of themselves playing chess together on their sites.

“This is me looking quietly confident shortly before my beautiful and brilliant love Natalie, destroys me at chess,” Cavill captioned his post at the time. Viscuso mocked her partner in her caption, claiming she was “teaching my dear Henry how to play some chess…or…maybe he let me win?”

The two debuted on the red carpet in New York City in October 2022 at the premiere of Cavill’s Netflix film Enola Holmes 2.

Viscuso is a television executive with Vertigo Entertainment. She and Cavill have confirmed they will work together on an adaptation of Warhammer 40,000 in December 2022.

Henry Cavill And Girlfriend Natalie Viscuso Expecting First Baby Together

Henry said on Instagram at the time that the collaboration “has been a blessing beyond words, [as] without her we might not have found the perfect home at Amazon.”

“Fantasy, horror and sci-fi are the bedrock of my creative language, so when Henry introduced me to Warhammer a couple of years ago, I immediately felt at home,” Viscuso wrote in an Instagram post.

SOURCE – (People)

NEW YORK — The historic hush-money trial of Donald Trump began Monday, with scores of prospective jurors crammed into a courtroom where the former president will face allegations that he fabricated business records to suppress revelations about his sex life.

The first criminal prosecution of any former US president will take place as Trump seeks to recover the White House, producing a fascinating split-screen spectacle in which the probable Republican nominee spends his days as a criminal defendant while also campaigning for government. Over the last year, he has combined both roles by portraying himself to supporters on the campaign road and social media as the object of politically motivated prosecutions intended to destroy his candidacy.

Potential Jurors Called Into Courtroom For Start Of Trump’s Historic Hush-Money Trial

After a norm-breaking presidency shadowed by years of investigations, Trump’s trial is a legal reckoning. Four indictments accuse him of crimes ranging from hoarding confidential data to attempting to overthrow an election. However, the political stakes are less obvious because a conviction would not prevent him from becoming president, and the charges, in this case, reach back years and are viewed as less serious than the conduct behind the other three indictments.

The day began with hours of pretrial arguments, including potential penalties for Trump before jury selection began Monday afternoon. The first members of the jury pool, 96 in total, were summoned to the courtroom, where the parties would select who among them would be chosen to decide the legal fate of the former, and possibly future, American president.

Trump craned his neck to glance back at the pool, talking to his lawyer as they entered the jury box.

“You are about to stand trial by jury. Judge Juan Merchan told the jurors that the jury trial system is one of the pillars of our legal system. “The name of this case is the People of the State of New York vs. Donald Trump.”

Trump’s notoriety would make selecting 12 jurors and six alternates a near-herculean task in any year, but it’s likely to be especially difficult now, as the election takes place in the heavily Democratic city where Trump grew up and rose to celebrity status decades before winning the presidency.

Merchan has said that the question is “whether the prospective juror can assure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”

Regardless of the verdict, Trump is determined to gain from the proceedings, portraying the case and his other indictments as a broad “weaponization of law enforcement” by Democratic prosecutors and authorities. He claims they are staging bogus allegations to derail his presidential campaign. He’s been criticizing judges and prosecutors for years, a pattern of attacks that persisted until Monday, when he entered court and declared, “This is political persecution.” “This is a new kind of persecution.”

Earlier Monday, the judge dismissed a defense request to disqualify himself from the case after Trump’s lawyers alleged a conflict of interest. He also stated that the prosecution could not show the jury the 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump was caught describing sexually assaulting women without their permission. However, prosecutors will be able to interrogate witnesses about the recording made public in the last weeks of the 2016 campaign.

Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office also urged Merchan on Monday to pay Trump $3,000 for social media statements that they said breached the judge’s gag order prohibiting him from assaulting witnesses. Last week, he used his Truth Social platform to label his former lawyer, Michael Cohen and adult film actress Stormy Daniels, “two sleaze bags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our country dearly!”

Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, contended that Trump was only responding to the witnesses’ comments.

“It’s not like President Trump is going out and targeting people. “He is responding to these witnesses’ salacious, repeated, vehement attacks,” Blanche stated.

Merchan did not rule out the request immediately but scheduled a hearing for next week.

Potential Jurors Called Into Courtroom For Start Of Trump’s Historic Hush-Money Trial

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges of falsifying company documents. Prosecutors believe the alleged fraud was part of an effort to prevent scandalous — and, Trump claims, false — tales about his personal life from surfacing during his 2016 campaign.

The allegations are based on $130,000 in payments made by Trump’s firm to Cohen. He paid that cash on Trump’s behalf a month before the election to prevent Daniels from going public with her claims of a sexual encounter with the married mogul a decade ago.

Prosecutors claim the payments to Cohen were falsely recorded as legal expenses to conceal their true purpose. Trump’s lawyers claim the disbursements were legal expenditures, not a cover-up.

After decades of fielding and bringing lawsuits, the businessman-turned-politician now faces a trial that may result in up to four years in prison if convicted, while a non-jail sentence is also an option. Trump is also expected to appeal any conviction.

Trump’s lawyers lost their quest to dismiss the hush-money case and have subsequently attempted to postpone it, resulting in a frenzy of last-minute appeals court proceedings last week.

Among other things, Trump’s attorneys argue that the jury pool in largely Democratic Manhattan has been corrupted by bad news about Trump and that the case should be transferred elsewhere.

An appeals judge denied an emergency motion to delay the trial, and a group of appellate judges will consider the change-of-venue request in the coming weeks.

Manhattan prosecutors have replied that most of the publicity derives from Trump’s words and that questioning will reveal whether prospective jurors can overcome their preconceived notions. They claim there is no reason to believe that 12 fair and impartial people cannot be identified among Manhattan’s roughly 1.4 million adult citizens.

The prospective jurors will only be identified by number since the judge has ordered that their names be kept secret from everyone save prosecutors, Trump, and their legal teams. The 42 preapproved, sometimes multi-pronged queries cover the basics while reflecting the case’s individuality.

Potential Jurors Called Into Courtroom For Start Of Trump’s Historic Hush-Money Trial

“Do you have any strong opinions or firmly held beliefs about former President Donald Trump, or the fact that he is a current candidate for president, that would interfere with your ability to be a fair and impartial juror?” asks a single inquiry.

Others inquire about attendance at Trump or anti-Trump rallies, opinions on how he is being treated in the case, news sources, and other factors — including any “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” that may “slant” a prospective juror’s attitude to the case.

Based on the responses, the attorneys can request that a court remove persons “for cause” if they fulfill certain criteria for being unfit to serve or impartial. The lawyers can also use “peremptory challenges” to dismiss 10 potential jurors and two prospective alternates without explaining.

“If you strike everybody who’s either a Republican or a Democrat,” the judge noted at a February hearing, “you’re going to run out of peremptory challenges very quickly.”

SOURCE – (AP)