The beloved actor Richard E Grant has revealed that he once hid in a toilet at Sandringham due to an odd phobia.

The 67-year-old actor is a beloved icon best known for his recent work on Saltburn, The Iron Lady, Jackie and his breakout 80s comedy Withnail and I.

After years of working with various charities including the Prince’s Trust, the actor has befriended the Royals, specifically with King Charles.

The actor revealed in a recent podcast appearance that he was once invited to dinner with the royals but was forced to spend 20 minutes on the toilet due to a phobia…of cheese.

His hatred of the dairy product puzzled Grace Dent the podcast host of Comfort Eating, who said the actor has to come across cheese all the time.

‘If you were invited to Balmoral for Christmasand Camilla said “now we’re all going into the parlor to see the cheeses,” would you then go?’ Grace asked.

‘I have lived with them (the The royal family) at Sandringham, not Balmoral and they don’t go to the parlor for the cheeses. The cheeses come into the dining room, and I have left the dining room when the cheeses have arrived.’

The Withnail and me star added: “It’s very easy, you just have to excuse yourself and go to the bathroom for 20 minutes.”

“That’s one of the most radical things I think I’ve ever heard,” Grace responded to the bizarre anecdote.

The actor has spoken about his hatred of cheese on many occasions, in 2023 when interviewed on This Morning the actor told Clodagh McKenna that he thought cheese “smelled ass”.

He later said the cheese smelled “horrible” and like “ass” on live daytime TV.

The actor is currently promoting his new series The Franchise – which is coming out Sky and also stars the likes of Lolly Adefope, Himesh Patel, Billy Magnussen and Daniel Brühl

The actor sat down to chat with Metro while promoting the series and revealed the ’90s ‘box office bomb’ that was a ‘nightmare’ to film.

‘The most chaotic film I ever worked on was a disaster called Hudson Hawk Bruce Willis 1990 where everything that could go wrong, with the script, the director, the stars, it did,” he said, reflecting on the film that came out in 1992.

“And it was a massive box office bomb,” he added. So it was, in retrospect, fun. At the time, an absolute nightmare.’

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