Hugh Grant: Notting Hill actor takes to social media after being stuck on A3 for five hours in traffic chaos

Hugh Grant has taken to X to share a “rant” about being stuck in a “five hour” traffic jam on the A3 coming into London on Friday (May 24).

The incident, which occurred at the beginning of the bank holiday weekend, saw motorists experience long delays, with the Love Actually and Bridget Jones actor taking to social media to share his frustration and ask, “How can this happen?”.

Grant was travelling on the A3, near Tolworth, Greater London, when he was caught out by the traffic jam, leaving him travelling just “five miles in five hours”. Here’s everything you need to know about Hugh Grant has said.

What did Hugh Grant say?

In a post on X, in what Grant described as his “final rant”, the actor revealed that he had been waiting in a queue on the A3 coming into London for “five hours”.

He wrote: “Final rant about being stuck on the A3 coming into London today in a traffic jam that moved five miles in five hours. No exit roads. No service stations Elderly ladies hobbling into the bushes in vain search for a dignified place to pee. Children howling. @TfL said they were doing “emergency repair works” near the Tolworth tunnel. But all day, drivers that finally made it there saw no work happening at all. Nor did I. Nothing. Just a lot of cones. So that @TfL message was apparently not true.”

He continued: “I find I can’t let this this lie. How can this happen? How can it be Iegal? What part of Broken Britain accounts for this?”

The actor then started to query what could be behind the mammoth traffic jam. He shared: “The problem here isn’t Half Term or bank holiday because this is going INTO London. So what is this? Is this pure incompetence? The consequence of outsourcing to dodgy contractors? Or something shadier? Maybe someone has inside information that could anonymously share?”

Grant didn’t reveal the reason behind his journey into London but did mention he was travelling with his children. The actor has five in total, sharing three with his wife, Anna Eberstein, and has his eldest two children - a daughter Tabitha Xiao Xi Grant, 12, and son, Felix Chang Hong Grant, 11 - with his ex-girlfriend Tinglan Hong. 

Traffic jams were particular bad on Friday ahead of the bank holiday weekend, with National Highways warning of delays on the A3 of up to 120 minutes northbound between the A244 junction at Esher and the A309 junction at Chessington.

Sarah McCann is a Trends Writer for NationalWorld who specialises in stories around TV, Film and Health. If you liked this article you can follow Sarah on X (Twitter) here. You can also sign up to her free weekly column in the NationalWorld newsletter bringing you the latest tv and film news every Thursday.