Is it time to reappraise our crushes in the wake of Hugh Grant's astonishing comeback? Plus, American Apparel's founder welcomes us into his home
Fancyings come in waves, like the smell of onions off a hot dog cart in high wind. A single event can propel a celebrity out of the urinal of our hearts, where they may have been lingering for a decade or more, and make you suddenly worry about all the hours you've wasted not fancying them, all the evenings spent not dwelling on their eyes, their paunch, spent not imagining the smell of their breath.
This week the fancying wave brought us Hugh Grant. It wasn't entirely out of the blue ? there was the incident in 2007 when he was arrested for throwing a tub of cold baked beans at a pap. I liked that. And then when a St Andrews student posted pictures on Facebook of Grant peeking drunkenly through a gap in a group of female undergraduates like the jam oozing out of a gorgeous doughnut ? that was brilliant, too. He looked like he'd be very fun at a party. Good at filling glasses and knowing how to curate his flirting so as not to make anyone feel ugly.
It was his piece in the New Statesman that tipped 50-year-old Grant over the edge, back into Britain's happy pit of lust. It wasn't just that, like Jason Bourne or a goodie in The Bill, he secretly recorded a conversation with the News of the World journalist who had once hacked his phone; or that he didn't edit from the transcript their conversation about Divine Brown; or even that he extracted from him the revelation that David Cameron dressed up as the Stig for Jeremy Clarkson's birthday treat; or that he called the piece "The Bugger, Bugged" ? in a single headline rekindling the sweary sexiness of his defining role as a stuttering tree with prefect hair. It's that he did it at ex-girlfriend (and New Statesman's guest editor) Jemima Khan's request. The beans thing, too ? that was outside the house of his other ex, Liz "Elizabeth" Hurley, defending her honour. Grant has emerged as a man who stays friends with his exes: American Dreamz, Music and Lyrics, the sordid monobrow sported in his 1995 mug shot ? all rottenness is forgotten. Staying friends with exes is on a par in the attractiveness stakes with having really nice forearms.
Reappraising old crushes ? it's an art and a hobby, and the perfect thing to do on a Virgin train while the memory of sewers is pumped liberally through the air-conditioning vents. Helen Mirren lay fallow for years before making her comeback, as did Take That, who stormed back into the realms of fanciable when they reunited but trundled off again some time last summer when the cardie thing got a bit much. The faces once pasted inside our homework diaries come on trend again when we're old (Gillian Anderson, the British revival; Leonardo DiCaprio, now puffy and silvered and good for a cuddle; Mark Wahlberg, "actor"; Matt LeBlanc, can now take the piss out of himself; Dannii Minogue, suddenly lovely; Keanu Reeves, photographed looking lonely) and re-fancying them makes us feel young again. There are those, however, who are destined to remain in our distant pasts ? the Damon Albarns, the Zo� Balls, the Shane from Boyzones, and even the David Milibands ? the pin-ups who were so of their time, so very "then", that it will take more than a well-chucked tub of beans to relight our fires.
MORE EMISSIONS this week from American Apparel founder Dov Charney's rubber-walled mind. In the past six years he's been sued for sexual harassment nine times ? last month alone five former employees filed lawsuits ? and in 2004 he masturbated in front of a female journalist during an interview, yet this 42-year-old leggings baron (currently nearing bankruptcy) still thinks it's a good idea to boast to the New York Times that, in the 20-room home he keeps as a "dormitory" for female employees (staff are required to send regular photos of themselves to management, which polices their weight and style), he hopes to recreate a "Playboy mansion" lifestyle. He's Charlie Sheen in colour-blocked jersey, and he's spiralling like a drying sycamore seed.
Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/evawiseman for all her articles in one place
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/24/hugh-grant-crush-american-apparel
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