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)

LAS VEGAS — O.J. Simpson, the renowned football player and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of murdering his former wife and a friend but found guilty in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76.

Simpson died of prostate cancer on Wednesday, according to his family, who announced it on his official X account. Simpson’s attorney told TMZ on Thursday that he died in Las Vegas.

Simpson rose to fame, money, and admiration in football and show business, but his legacy was irrevocably altered by the June 1994 knife murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles.

OJ Simpson, Fallen Football Hero Acquitted Of Murder In ‘Trial Of The Century,’ Dies At 76

Live T.V. coverage of his arrest during a historic slow-speed chase signaled a precipitous fall from grace.

He appeared to transcend racial barriers as a star Trojan tailback for the powerful University of Southern California in the late 1960s, a rental car ad pitchman rushing through airports in the late 1970s, and the husband of a blond and blue-eyed high school homecoming queen in the 1980s.

“I’m not Black, I’m O.J.,” he would tell friends.

His “trial of the century” captivated the audience on live television. His case raised discussions about racism, gender, domestic violence, celebrity justice, and police wrongdoing.

A criminal court jury found him not guilty of murder in 1995, but a separate civil trial jury found him accountable for the murders in 1997 and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to Brown and Goldman’s families.

Ten years later, Simpson led five men he hardly knew into a fight with two sports memorabilia dealers in a cramped hotel room in Las Vegas, still troubled by the California wrongful death verdict. Simpson was accompanied by two men armed with firearms. A jury found Simpson guilty of armed robbery and other offenses.

He was imprisoned at the age of 61 and spent nine years in a remote northern Nevada prison, including time as a gym janitor. He was not remorseful when he was freed on parole in October 2017. The parole board heard him argue once more that he was merely seeking to recover sports memorabilia and family heirlooms stolen from him following his criminal trial in Los Angeles.

“I’ve basically spent a conflict-free life, you know,” said Simpson, whose parole expires in late 2021.

The public’s interest in Simpson remained strong. Many people questioned whether he was punished in Las Vegas after his acquittal in Los Angeles. In 2016, he was the focus of a five-part ESPN documentary and an F.X. mini-series.

“I don’t think most of America believes I did it,” Simpson told The New York Times in 1995, a week after a jury ruled he did not murder Brown and Goldman. “I’ve gotten thousands of letters and telegrams from people supporting me.”

Twelve years later, in response to widespread public outcry, Rupert Murdoch shelved a proposed book by News Corp.-owned HarperCollins in which Simpson presented his hypothetical account of the murders. It was supposed to be titled “If I Did It.”

Goldman’s family, which is currently pursuing the multimillion-dollar wrongful death claim, obtained custody of the text. They retitled the book “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.”

“It’s all blood money, and unfortunately, I had to join the jackals,” Simpson told the Associated Press at the time. He received $880,000 in advance payments for the book via a third party.

“It helped me get out of debt and secure my homestead,” he told me.

Less than two months after losing the book rights, Simpson was jailed in Las Vegas.

OJ Simpson, Fallen Football Hero Acquitted Of Murder In ‘Trial Of The Century,’ Dies At 76

David Cook, an attorney who has been pursuing the civil judgment in the Goldman case since 2008, said he spoke with Ron’s father, Fred, on Thursday about Simpson’s death. Cook refuses to reveal what Fred Goldman had said or where he was.

“He died without penance,” Cook said of Simpson. “We have yet to learn what he has, where it is, or who is in control. We shall continue from where we are.

Simpson spent nine of his 11 NFL seasons with the Buffalo Bills, earning the nickname “The Juice” as part of an offensive line known as “The Electric Company.” He won four NFL rushing titles, amassed 11,236 yards, scored 76 touchdowns, and appeared in five Pro Bowls. His best season was 1973, when he rushed for 2,003 yards, becoming the first running back to reach that milestone.

“I was a part of the history of the game,” he said years later. “If I did nothing else in my life, I’d made my mark.”

Of course, Simpson went on to achieve more renown.

One of the items from his murder trial, the meticulously fitted tan suit he wore when acquitted, was later donated and displayed at the Newseum in Washington. Simpson was assured that the outfit would be at his hotel room in Las Vegas, but it wasn’t.

Orenthal James Simpson was born in San Francisco on July 9, 1947. He grew up in government-subsidized housing developments.

Following graduation from high school, he attended City College of San Francisco for a year and a half before moving to the University of Southern California for the spring 1967 semester.

He married his first wife, Marguerite Whitley, on June 24, 1967, and moved her to Los Angeles the next day to begin preparation for his first season with USC, which won the national championship that year largely due to Simpson’s contributions.

OJ Simpson, Fallen Football Hero Acquitted Of Murder In ‘Trial Of The Century,’ Dies At 76

Simpson won the Heisman Trophy in 1968. He accepted the statue on the same day as the birth of his first child, Arnelle.

He had two kids with his first wife, Jason and Aaren. One of them, Aaren, drowned as a toddler in a swimming pool accident in 1979, the same year he and Whitley divorced.

Simpson and Brown got married in 1985. They had two kids, Justin and Sydney, and divorced in 1992. Nicole Brown Simpson was found killed two years after she disappeared.

“We don’t need to go back and relive the worst day of our lives,” he told the Associated Press 25 years after the double homicide. “The topic of the moment is one I will never revisit again. My family and I have moved on to the ‘no negative zone.’ We focus on the positives.”

SOURCE – (AP)

 

“Fallout” debuts in such an appealing way – at a kid’s birthday party, of all places – that the Amazon series seemed poised to join “The Last of Us” in perfecting the transition from game to screen. As the first season unfolds, this post-apocalyptic concept feels closer to “Twisted Metal” as it becomes lost in the wastelands, carrying a deep mythology that mirrors “Westworld” in its broader, more cynical vision of the world.

That latter parallel hardly seems coincidental, given that the new series is overseen by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, who created “Westworld,” one of TV’s most captivating programs until, unexpectedly, it wasn’t. While “Fallout” should pique the interest of fans of the Tim Cain-created game, its broader appeal appears unlikely to rival the HBO above hits, despite an impressive visual palette and a mix of quirkiness and gruesome violence that is better balanced in Amazon’s signature series “The Boys.”

‘Fallout’ Surfaces As A Series That Gets Lost In The Game-To-Screen Wastelands

Even trying to summarize the tale of “Fallout” gives an idea of how complex the structure is, at least until its parallel threads begin to converge. The initial focus is on vault dwellers who have remained underground for more than 200 years following nuclear catastrophe, attempting to “keep the candle of civilization lit,” as their leader puts it.

Soon, their reverie is disrupted, and one of their number, Lucy (“Yellowjackets'” Ella Purnell), sets out on a mission that leads her deep into the cruel world above.

There, the wide-eyed Lucy encounters irradiated monsters galore: metal-clad knights (think Iron Man, but clunkier), with Aaron Moten playing a squire for a militaristic group known as the Brotherhood of Steel; and a character known as the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), a mutated bounty hunter whose nose-less visage resembles Marvel’s Red Skull, with a backstory that provides the show’s strongest mythological hook.

“I hate it up here,” Lucy says early on, and considering the horrors she’s seen, who could blame her? Her journey, however, includes not just carnage but also insights about her society and its beginnings, as well as brief contacts (some brief) with a talented cast of co-stars such as Moisés Arias, Kyle MacLachlan, Sarita Choudhury, Michael Emerson, and Leslie Uggams.

‘Fallout’ Surfaces As A Series That Gets Lost In The Game-To-Screen Wastelands

After overseeing “The Peripheral,” Nolan (Christopher Nolan’s brother and frequent collaborator) directs the first three of the eight episodes, establishing the darkly comic, sci-fi/western tone and a scale that suggests this is another major bet for Prime Video.

Charitably, the eight episodes merely scratch the surface of the premise’s rich story potential, which structurally may set up “Fallout” for the long run, similar to the recent (and more effective) “3 Body Problem.” The show has already earned tax incentives from the state of California, making a second season more appealing.

‘Fallout’ Surfaces As A Series That Gets Lost In The Game-To-Screen Wastelands

Even still, as Season 1 comes to a close, there’s less excitement for what comes next and more relief that this somewhat clumsy debut, with its motley pool of players, is finally finished.

As previously said, there is plenty of room to further explore the world of “Fallout.” Still, based on the trajectory of game-to-screen translations, witnessing this candle go out would not feel like the end of the world.

SOURCE – (CNN)