In 1995, English actor Hugh Grant was on top of the world. His 1994 comedic masterpiece movie Four Weddings and a Funeral made him an international star. And he was all loved up with the gorgeous English actress Elizabeth Hurley.
In June of 1995, he was in Los Angeles/Hollywood to promote his new movie Nine Months. He was already booked on a number of American talk shows, including The Jay Leno Show.
Then the "bad thing" happened. On the evening of the 27th of June, he was arrested in Los Angeles near Sunset Boulevard. Why? Well, he was "at it" in his BMW with a working girl named Divine Brown.
Both were hauled off to jail for that all-important mugshot moment. Both pleaded "no contest" and were fined and ordered to complete an AIDS education program.
It was a disaster, right? Well, it looked that way. But Grant weathered the storm. And Divine? She put the working girl thing behind her and went back to using her real name, Estella Marie Thompson. And she got rich, living off her up close and personal encounter with a movie star who oozed charm, at least on the big screen.
Divine Brown - Poverty Made Her Do It
It's the usual tale of a girl growing up in poverty, one of six kids of a single mom. She herself had two children and, according to The Age, she turned to walking the streets to pay a $133 electricity bill.
On the night of the 25th of June, she was strutting her stuff in red stilettos in the red light district of Los Angeles, having left her kids with a babysitter in Oakland, California. Her goal? She needed to make $1,500.
Then she spotted a nervous-looking guy in a new BMW with a baseball cap pulled over his eyes. He flashed his lights in her direction and she went over. He wanted her to perform a "lewd act" on him as he sat behind the wheel of his car. Divine told him that would cost him $50. Okay, he said. Divine got in the car and got to work.
It wasn't until after the arrest that she realized her "John" was none other than Hugh Grant.
When she got back to her Oakland apartment the next day, a swarm of media types was waiting for her. She soon twigged to the idea that she could turn the brief encounter into a money-making machine.
Says The Age, "The world was agog: it wanted to know all the gory details of what exactly had gone on between her, the quintessential Sunset Strip hooker, and the heart-throb superstar who had in the space of one evening fallen so ignominiously from grace."
And Divine was willing to tell them, for a price. While Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant were coming apart at the seams, Divine was cashing in.
In quick succession, Divine appeared on "almost every chat show going", including Jerry Springer, Judge Judy, and The Howard Stern Show. Reportedly, those little gigs made her a millionaire.
But the big bucks came from the British tabloids who wanted to dish the dirt on a well-loved actor.
The News of The World flew Divine and her "manager" (and father of her children) Gangsta Brown to Palm Springs. They said the magic words "we'll pay" and that was that. Oh, they pretended they wanted to write a "positive story", but we all know how that goes.
Then came the semi-nude pictures for magazines like Penthouse and Centrefold. Did she care that all of this only caused Grant more embarrassment? Nope.
Then in 1996, she did a little X-rated "docudrama" with adult star Ron Jeremy. The title? Sunset and Divine: The British Experience.
