Dear Gossips,

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy comes out in less than a month and Renée Zellweger covers the new issue of British Vogue as she kicks off promotion. Renée’s hair is short, she is styled in mostly menswear, she looks great, and I can’t wait to see the movie because – and I don’t think this should be a spoiler – Mark Darcy is dead and she’s dating again and she hooks up with a younger man, Roxter (LOL), played by Leo Woodall, but there’s also a stern Chiwetel Ejiofor hovering about and this, of course, is kind of an updated version of Daniel Cleaver and Mark, sort of, right? Whatever, I’m in.

But… speaking of Daniel…

He’s back too, as a close lifelong friend, and so it’s Hugh Grant who interviews Renée for Vogue which… normally I hate a celebrity-to-celebrity interview but in this case, I mean, it’s Hugh Grant. We will make an exception for Hugh Grant. If he was willing, Hugh Grant should interview every celebrity, and not because he’s a good interviewer; he is actually a terrible interviewer, he makes it about himself. But the himself in this case is so grouchy, so bitchy, so entertaining, you get a two-in-one: it’s Renée as seen, affectionately, through the eyes of Hugh, and Hugh just being Hugh.

The whole thing is a scream, literally, I laughed out loud multiple times while reading it and I want that for you, if you haven’t yet, so I won’t excerpt anything and all I’ll say here is that I very much enjoy Hugh Grant giving us his opinion on fashion, even though he probably has no business doing it, and I love that he admits to reading all his bad reviews and obsessively searching social media to see what people are saying about him. Also, I challenge you to resist the urge to howl when he asks Renée, “Was it panties?” but I’m not going to tell you the context.

This is the only downside of being interviewed by Hugh Grant. Which, frankly, l don’t think for a second that Renée minds, in fact I wonder if she might prefer it that way – to be eclipsed by him, that is. Or, if not eclipsed, than not the Main Focus, the heatscore, with all the attention being directed on her. I’ve spent more time talking about Hugh than about Renée and that’s partly because he’s so beloved in these parts, specifically for how crotchety he is. Crotchety and, at the same time, thirsty. And he’s aware of it too. He understands that he’s fighting both the urge to love being famous and hating the fact that he loves being famous.

Like, Hugh was nominated, deservedly so, for a BAFTA yesterday for his work in Heretic. Inside he’s preening. But also inside he detests the part of him that is preening, the part of himself that craves the validation. This is what makes him amazing: that he doesn’t bother hiding the contradiction, the hypocrisy, the self-loathing. Is this what they call authenticity?

Click here for more of Hugh and Renee in British Vogue and join us to Squawk about their interview and my feminist failing. (App link here)

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

Hugh Grant Gossip

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