Hugh Grant calls out the media

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J. K. Rowling as well.

J.K. Rowling chased from home by press, she says - CNN.com

London (CNN) -- Paparazzi hounded "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling after her children were born so constantly that she felt like a hostage in her own house, she told a government-backed inquiry into British press ethics and practices Thursday.
She could not go outside without being photographed for a week after the births of her second and third children, she told the Leveson Inquiry.

And it was "hard to say how I angry I was" at finding that a journalist had managed to slip a note into her 5-year-old daughter's school bag, she said.

"A child, no matter who their parents are, deserves privacy. ... It's a fairly black-and-white issue," she said, arguing that a child had no say in who their parents were or what they did.

She had to move out of an earlier house because of harassment by journalists, she said.

"I really was a sitting duck for anyone that wanted to find me," Rowling said of the home she bought just as her fictional boy wizard became a worldwide sensation in 1997.

The allegation is that they're public figures, wealthy (thanks to the public, so the old song goes), and this is the price they pay for the honor. That's obviously unmitigated bullshit, but it's what the paparazzi apparently tell themselves so they can sleep at night.

 

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Hugh Grant's Privacy Crusade Reaches Parliament - E! Online

In acknowledging that he has no problem giving interviews to promote his films, Grant noted that it didn't mean the press should be automatically privy to his private life, as well.

"If I sell someone milk for 50p, you wouldn't expect anybody to come and say, 'You slut, now you've got to give me milk for free, for ever,'" the Notting Hill star said.

Grant, who since the News of the World hacking scandal broke has become a de facto spokesman for victims of Britain's tabloid culture, said that the media's "hubris is incredible" if they think that they are responsible for turning people like him into celebrities.

Successful films have nothing to do with an actor's private life, and vice versa, Grant says.