After her viral ‘car crash interview’ with Hugh Grant, Ashley Graham has reacted to the awkward moment – and she's taking the high road.
The clip from the Oscars red carpet, which quickly circulated on social media after airing on television, saw Hugh Grant give short and snappy answers to Ashley's questions as well as seemingly rolling his eyes – which led to wide criticism of the actor for being “rude” and “uncooperative”.
Since then, Ashley has weighed in on her own experience of the interview – telling TMZ that some wise words from her mum helped her in the situation. “You know what? My mama told me to kill people with kindness, so there you go,” she told the cameraman, when asked if she had taken any offence to Hugh's behaviour.
She's the first Asian woman to win the category in the Academy Awards’ 95-year history.
The smiling Ashley Graham also maintained that she still had a great time at the Oscars, adding: “I had so much fun. My feet hurt though, but I had fun!”
So what happened? ICYMI: at the beginning of the interview, Ashley asked Hugh about his “favourite thing about coming to the Oscars” to which he responded, “Well, it's fascinating, it's the whole of humanity is here… it's Vanity Fair”, referencing to a 19th century novel by William Makepeace Thackeray (Hugh read English Literature at Oxford), which Ashley (understandably) interprets as a reference to the famous Vanity Fair Oscars afterparty, responding, “Yes, it's all about Vanity Fair. That's where we let loose and have some fun”.
The interview went downhill from there. “Are you excited to see anyone win?”, Ashley asks Hugh, to which he says “No one particularly, no” – then subsequently gives dismissive answers before rolling his eyes twice at the end of the interview, right after a struggling Ashley tells him, “it was nice to talk to you”.
A follow-up question about Hugh Grant's role in the film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – which was up for an Oscar in the ceremony – was dismissed by Hugh, “I'm barely in it”. Hugh has a brief cameo in the film, playing the husband of detective Benoit Blanc, who's played by Daniel Craig.
“It still must have been fun though, you had fun right?”, Ashley presses – giving Hugh an opportunity to talk about the filming.
“Erm... almost.”
You can watch the full interview at the clip here:
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Some social media users have slated Hugh for the exchange, calling him “rude and dismissive”, “standoffish” and “uncooperative”.
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Some have contested that this behaviour is typical of Hugh, who is known for having a frosty relationship with the media – as a member of the UK Press Reform Group, and also having taken part in the Leveson Inquiry into the relationship between the media, politics and the public in 2021. Others insist his responses were simply ‘very British’.
However, others have questioned why he stopped to engage in the interview in the first place if he was going to be dismissive.
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Either way – it hasn't gone down well, with global media also jumping in to critique. French news platform France Daily called it, “painfully awkward”, while Rolling Stone deemed Hugh to have had “a bad night”.
