Elizabeth Hurley and Hugh Grant were both up-and-comers when they met making the 1988 Spanish film Rowing With the Wind, in which Grant portrayed Romantic icon Lord Byron.
“Hugh did look particularly fine in those cream britches,” Hurley jested in an interview. “But I think I might have liked him anyway. There was an instant rapport. He made me laugh.”
The longtime couple seemingly shot to global stardom simultaneously, Grant for his breakout performance in 1994’s Four Weddings and a Funeral and Hurley, by then a major model, for the still-iconic Versace safety-pin gown she wore to the film’s London premiere.
So wasn’t the globe shocked when Grant was arrested in June 1995 for lewd conduct with a prostitute (and later was sentenced to two years’ unsupervised probation after pleading no contest), and his publicity tour for the warm ‘n’ fuzzy rom-com Nine Months turned into an apology odyssey?
But Hurley stood by him, including at the film’s premiere—”She has been real supportive and we’re going to try and work it out,” Grant said on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno—and they ultimately stayed together until 2000.
“I loved everything I was doing, and I think I just sort of, you know—you know, I’ve got great friends, great family,” Hurley said on Larry King Live in 2000, reflecting on how she fluourished post-scandal. “And so, you know, everything turned out OK in the end.”