Hugh Grant doesn't know beans about dealing with the paparazzi.
The actor was arrested on suspicion of assault and questioned by London police Wednesday after allegedly launching into a legume-assisted attack on a shutterbug.
According to Daily Star snapper Ian Whittaker, whose claims appear to be backed up by photographs of the incident taking place, Grant allegedly kicked the cameraman three times before hurling his weapon of choice at the man's head: a Tupperware-like container full of baked beans.
Whittaker told the newspaper that he was left "bruised, battered and covered in baked beans" after the incident, which occurred at roughly 10 a.m. outside Grant's home in the tony South Kensington neighborhood of London, not far from the home of Grant's newlywed ex, Elizabeth Hurley, whom Whittaker claims he was originally in the area to snap.
Of course, he might have had more luck had he been waiting in front of her home and not Grant's.
"While we were waiting, Hugh Grant pulled up in his car," he told the Daily Star. "It looked like he had been out for a morning jog. I asked him if he would give me a smile because he was standing with his head down. But he must have been having a bad day because he started chasing me down the street."
"Suddenly he's following me down the road and hurling abuse."
And side dishes.
Whittaker then claims he was asked by the 46-year-old Notting Hill star whether he had any children. When he answered yes, he claims Grant then said he hoped they'd "die of f---ing cancer."
"That really upset me and is why I went to the police to make a complaint of assault against him," Whittaker said. "He was out of order to say hateful things about my children—I'm determined to see this through."
While Grant's attorneys have confirmed that an incident with the paparazzi had taken place and was currently under investigation, he adamantly denies that the actor uttered the reproachful remark.
London's Metropolitan Police, meanwhile, could not confirm that Grant was involved in the scuffle—though thanks to the photographic evidence they hardly need to—as protocol dictates that they only release the name of someone who has been formally charged with a crime, which Grant has yet to be.
However, they did release a statement confirming that "a 46-year-old man was arrested in connection with allegations of assault on a 43-year-old man following an incident" in west London.
"He has been bailed to return, pending further inquiries, to a police station on a date in May."
On Wednesday evening, the foppish Love, Actually star voluntarily presented himself at a London police station, where he was formally arrested for the incident and questioned for roughly an hour.
He was released on bail and is due back at the station sometime in May.
The bizarre baked bean incident isn't Grant's first brush with the law. Grant was infamously arrested in 1995 after being caught on Sunset Boulevard with the prostitute Divine Brown.