The Hollywood star, the tabloid executive, the guest editor and the PM

(GETTY IMAGES)

In his illustrious on-screen career as the archetypal bumbling Englishman, Hugh Grant has achieved stardom as a cuddly klutz. Now a new, darker side to the Oxford-educated thespian can be revealed – that of the calculating mastermind of the sort of tabloid sting which has earned him some of his less flattering headlines.

The actor yesterday revealed the fruits of an extraordinary and unorthodox interview he conducted in a Kent pub with its owner Paul McMullan, a former News of the World executive who had previously admitted to hacking mobile phone messages before it became illegal, using a concealed tape recorder. Or, as Mr Grant succinctly put it, "the bugger bugged".

The result was a list of colourful and unsubstantiated allegations covering areas from whether Rebekah Brooks, the former NOTW editor and now chief executive of News International, knew about phone-hacking at the Sunday paper to the suggestion that a well-known television actress had an early career as a prostitute. News International said last night that it "totally refutes" the claims against Ms Brooks.

The interview, excerpts from which were published in this week's edition of The New Statesman, guest edited by Mr Grant's former girlfriend Jemima Khan, was an example of revenge being a dish best served in cold black and white print after Mr McMullan happened to pull up behind the actor's broken-down car earlier last year and offered the stranded actor a lift. The landlord then sold pictures and his account of the incident to the Mail on Sunday for £3,000.

As part of a meditation on freedom of information and privacy, the Hollywood actor made good on a pledge to drop in at his saviour's Dover pub for a friendly pint and a chat. The encounter was given added piquancy by the fact Mr McMullan has stated that phone-hacking was "pretty widespread" at the NOTW and suggested that its targets might have included Mr Grant. The actor, whose entanglement with prostitute Divine Brown provided the nadir of an often fractious relationship with the British press, extracted from Mr McMullan an allegation that Ms Brooks "absolutely" knew about the practice, allegations about which this week led to the arrest of the paper's chief reporter and a former senior executive. The former NOTW executive added that during the 1990s, newspapers had widely used scanners, costing as little as £60, to record conversations, including those of Princess Diana. Mr McMullan, who has previously claimed that former No 10 spokesman Andy Coulson was aware of hacking during his tenure as NOTW editor, then went on to muse about a claimed equestrian link between David Cameron and Ms Brooks, whose relationship fell under scrutiny earlier this year when it emerged that the Prime Minister and his wife had attended a social engagement at the media executive's Oxfordshire home before Christmas.

The ex-journalist, unaware he was being taped, said: "Cameron went horse-riding regularly with Rebekah. I know, because as well as doorstepping celebrities, I've also doorstepped my ex-boss by hiding in the bushes, waiting for her to come past with Cameron on horse... before the election to show that – you know – Murdoch was backing Cameron."

Mr Grant noted that "absurdly I felt a bit guilty for recording [Mr McMullan]". For his part, his target recognised the tables had been turned. Mr McMullan said: "I asked [Mr Grant] jokingly if he was taping our conversation. When I heard about the article, my response was a big fat 'oops'."