Hugh Grant: Cheating is good for marriage

Four Weddings And A Funeral actor Hugh Grant has claimed he knows the secret to a happy marriage – cheating on your partner.

The unmarried 55-year-old, who has four children from two previous relationships, advised Britons to look to the French for inspiration on matrimonial harmony.

Speaking to US radio host Howard Stern, he said: “Do I think human beings are meant to be in 40-year-long monogamous, faithful, relationships? No.

“Whoever said they were? Only the Bible or something. No-one ever said that was a good idea.” Hugh – who has dated a long list of beautiful women including Elizabeth Hurley and Jemima Khan – claimed marriage is in fact “unromantic” and involves “closing yourself off”.

He continued: “I always admire the French and the Italians who are very devoted to their marriages.

“They take them extremely seriously, but it is understood that there might be other visitors at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. You just never boast about it.

“They never say anything, but that’s what keeps marriages together.

The Notting Hill actor has built his career playing charming characters in rom-coms, but he said there is no contradiction between playing the perfect partner while actually believing marriage leads to “possessiveness, ownership, jealously”.

In the varied interview, Hugh also spoke about being “fat-shamed” by the British press over images that appeared of him topless on the beach.

“But they were right. I looked shocking,” he confessed.

He also explained that he turned down Ashton Kutcher’s role in Two And A Half Men because he couldn’t trust the part without a script, while he rejected the new Bridget Jones’s Baby movie because he didn’t think the script was good enough.

He insisted with a smile: "I’m particularly difficult and Queeny when it comes to scripts, and I couldn’t quite make the script work for me so they then made it without me, and that’s brilliant."