Last updated: 09/10/2007
Student Grant

Hugh Grant gave some St. Andrews University girls a notting thrill when he joined them at a student party on Saturday October 6. The Hollywood actor was in Fife for a £1 million golf tournament.

The actor met a couple of local students in a pub and joined them at a student flat for drinks. News of his presence quickly spread and drew a bevy of keen-eyed women around him on the sofa. Photos of his unexpected visit quickly made headlines after being posted on Facebook – one image shows Grant apparently about to kiss one the girls.

Following a gala meal to mark the end of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship golf tournament, Grant moved on to Ma Bells pub, a local haunt of many of the more affluent students at St. Andrews that a favourite of Prince William and Kate Middleton during their studies at the university.

One onlooker described the attention Grant received to the Daily Record: "Hugh was in his element surrounded by some of the university's prettiest and most eligible girls. They were buzzing around him like bees and he certainly seemed to make time for all of them. Cecilia seemed to catch his eye and he had no hesitation in accepting the invite back to her pal's flat with a group of their friends."

Cecilia Hoffman, 19, who hails from Virginia in the USA told the Sun how she invited Hugh to the bash: “We asked him for a picture first. Then we said: ‘Do you wanna come to a party?’… He said ‘yeah’”
The 5 ft 3in blonde, who describes herself on Facebook as a ‘petite Catholic’, and her friend Helen Beddow-Twigg grabbed a taxi and took Grant back to a student flat nearby where he stuck right into some rum and cokes.

As word quickly spread that the Hugh Grant was there, more people arrived at the terraced house and the party quickly grew. The 47 year-old was soon surrounded by a group of female students at least half his age, all vying for his attention. Naturally, not wishing to let the moment pass without a record; digital cameras began clicking and bleeping away.

The photographs taken at the party were posted on Facebook within hours and shortly after came to the attention of the media when they popped up on celebrity gossip site perezhilton.com. The shots show Grant looking a tad worse for wear with his arms draped around the young ladies. One image shows the actor seemingly entranced by one of the girls as she stands (or dances?!) in front of him, another photograph seems to show Grant poised for a snog with one of his admirers.

Cecilia told the Sun he gave all the girls nicknames, adding: “He was very like his character in the films - posh, polite, very English accent, but a bit of a charmer.”

One partygoer said: “He was lapping up the attention and he was quite drunk. It came across as a bit sleazy - sort of like Daniel Cleaver. He was asking the girls questions about who stayed where, and at one point he joked: ‘Who lives in this hovel then?’"

Also in attendance, Emily Hartley, 19 from Kenya, added: “He was exactly like the kind of guy in his movies - not quite as suave as Notting Hill, but still a bit of a cad… He was taking the piss out of our digs.”
One of the few male students there commented: “It was weird being in this small room with 10 to 15 people and Hugh Grant sitting on the sofa looking kind of creepy. Nobody could quite believe he had come to a student party.”

20 year old Caroline Hargreaves from Oslo in Norway told the Sun how some of the girls were later whisked away in his chauffeured 4x4 by Grant to a party at the Old Course Hotel. She said: “It was about three or four in the morning by then but we went anyway. He bought us all champagne. We spent more time talking with him. Then he said he was going to the bathroom and we didn’t see him after that.”

Other stars taking part in the golfing event included Dennis Hopper, Samuel L Jackson, Bill Murray, Boris Becker and Ronan Keating.

Hugh Grant’s headline grabbing student socialising comes a year after Bill Murray made a similar surprise appearance at a student bash in St Andrews. Murray hung around and helped with the washing up after being invited to the party by a Scandinavian blonde.