Hugh Grant Thinks Barking Dogs Sing Better Than Drew Barrymore

Hugh Grant came eye-rolling into this year’s Oscars with no effs to give, either delighting or incensing viewers with his apathetic red carpet answers. (We are definitely in the delighted camp.) Were there any actors he was rooting for? “No, not one in particular,” he replied. Was he wearing a designer outfit? Nope. “Just my suit.” Was it a great experience to be in a big hit like Glass Onion? “Well, I’m barely in it. I’m in it for about three seconds.” 

Hugh Grant, ladies and gentlemen!

But Grant was just getting started. He continued his Scorched Earth 2023 Tour after the Oscars and former co-star Drew Barrymore got caught in the crossfire. In a Wired interview posted earlier this week, Grant takes on “the web’s most-searched questions.” One burning query: “Does Hugh Grant actually sing in Music and Lyrics?” 

Grant does actually sing, he says, although he was “auto-tuned beyond belief. Actually, that’s not true. I’m auto-tuned a bit, but not as much as some.” Uh-oh, you can probably see where this is going. The “some” in this case refers to Barrymore, and Grant insists that she won’t mind that he says “her singing is just horrendous” in Music and Lyrics.

But why leave things at “just horrendous”?  “I’ve heard dogs bark better than she sings,” Grant joked (we think), before recovering with a half-assed compliment. “Once they tuned her up, she sounded way better than me, because she’s got heart and voice and rock ‘n’ roll. Whereas I sounded like Julie Andrews, and I meant to be kind of rock ‘n’ roll as well.” 

Barrymore, sunny as usual, doesn’t seem to have taken offense at the yowling dog comparison. In fact, she’s invited Grant to duet with her yet again in an Instagram post where she reprises “Way Back Into Love” into a decidedly non-auto-tuned hairbrush.

“Hugh, Bert, Hubert — that’s for you,” she concludes, stamping her post with an all-caps JOIN ME. And while we think the unapologetic Barrymore is great, her post proves that Grant might have had a point.