Hugh Grant has confessed his wife Anna Aberstein is routinely torn “to pieces” by internet trolls. The industry veteran took no prisoners earlier this month when he opened up about the cyberbullying his wife has been subjected to in a scathing social media post.

After earning early acting credits in 1987’s The Dawning and later Carlo U. Quinterio’s Night Train to Venice, Hugh, now 64, propelled himself to stardom in the 1994 flick Four Weddings and a Funeral. Since then, the star has appeared in everything from the Bridget Jones’ Diary franchise to 2023’s Wonka with Hollywood icon Timotheé Chalamet.

Away from the limelight, the actor said ‘I do’ to Swedish producer Anna, 41, in 2018. The pair, who share a 23-year age gap, reportedly met at a party in London and initially began appearing publicly together as a couple in 2015, as per Grazia.

On October 20, Hugh took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to fiercely defend his spouse of six years after pictures taken of her seemingly garnered negative traction online. Writing to his 837,500 followers, the Notting Hill favourite commented: “Sometimes when I go to events my wife comes with me.”

The father-of-five went on to say that when images of Anna appear online, there are usually “hundreds of comments” tearing her “to pieces”. He continued: “She’s never thrust herself forward or courted attention in any way.

“I don’t know if the comments are real…Or by bots. But I do know it’s cyber bullying. And mysoginist.” (Sic)

The Love Actually star and Anna – who studied economics at university in Sweden and then Tennessee – share three children together.

Their first son, John Mungo, was born in 2012 while their subsequent daughters were welcomed into the world in 2015 and 2018.

Hugh also shares two other children with Chinese actress Tinglan Hong, 45 – a daughter named Tabitha Xiao Xi and a son called Felix Chang Hong Grant.

Speaking about becoming a father for the first time at the age of 51, the Hammersmith-born legend said: “It’s just lovely to have all that love around.

“Suddenly you love someone more than yourself. It’s unheard of in my case and they love you and it’s all enchanting.”

In a 2020 interview with The Undoing co-star Nicole Kidman, 57, Hugh admitted that filming on location away from his family was difficult.

“I thought, ‘Oh, fantastic opportunity to get away from my screaming children’,” he said, as reported by Marie Claire.

“I left everyone in London. And then, as soon as I got to New York, each time I came out to film, I missed so much. It was, it was awful.”

On Thursday (October 31) Hugh’s latest film Heretic was released in theatres across the UK.

The A24 horror flick, directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, was initially premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year and sees Hugh portraying a Scottish man called Mr. Reed.

His character – described as “diabolic” by the official movie’s synopsis – traps two religious women in his remote home, forcing them to play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse.

Interestingly Hugh has previously revealed Mr. Reed is based on people he has encountered in his real life.

“There have been people in my life who were useful to me, people who were very, very clever – brilliant, really, and in some ways very plausible and quite charming and quite bewitching, but who you gradually realise that there’s something deeply wrong with them,” he said.

“And these people very often really struggle to have any relationships in life, any meaningful friendships, and resort to things like pranks.”

Heretic is out in theatres now.