Drew Barrymore Defends ‘Grumpy’ Hugh Grant After Oscars Red Carpet Backlash (Video)

Drew Barrymore defended Hugh Grant after he caused a stir at the Oscars last weekend for making things awkward during a red carpet interview with ABC’s pre-show host Ashley Graham.

In the now-viral video, things went south when the model-actress missed his joke about the novel “Vanity Fair,” attributing the reference to the magazine of the same name’s famous Oscars after-party. He refused to appease her follow-up questions with more than a few words, answering that he was rooting for “no one in particular” and was wearing “just my suit.”

Though the internet accused him of being “shady,” his friend Barrymore wrote it off as a classic Grant moment.

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“There’s this thing going around with him and Ashley Graham on the red carpet. People are like, ‘Oh, he’s such a curmudgeon, and she’s so thrown’ – I’m like, ‘No, that is Hugh Grant,'” she said on Friday’s episode of her talk show “The Drew Barrymore Show.”

“You think you’re getting this charming movie star, and what you really get is grumpy Hugh. And then you fall in love with grumpy Hugh,” she continued. “When he says that, I’m telling you, he is being absolutely funny, he doesn’t mean one negative thing about it. The person Ashley Graham met on that carpet is the real Hugh.”

Barrymore added that “it took me a second” to get used to Grant when they first met. (The pair co-starred in the 2007 romantic dramedy “Music and Lyrics.”)

“As I got to know him, I was like, ‘I do love you. I love you for the real you.’ And he is a hilarious, good human being.”

Grant presented the Oscar for Best Production Design with his “Four Weddings and a Funeral” co-star Andie MacDowell.

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“We’re actually here to do two things: The first is raising awareness about the vital importance of using a good moisturizer,” he said during their monologue. “Andie’s been using one every day for the last 29 years, I’ve never used one in my life.” He described his co-presenter as “still stunning,” while he was “basically a scrotum,” getting a laugh from the audience.

The actor can next be seen starring in “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” which premieres in theaters March 31.

Watch Barrymore’s defense of Grant above.

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