Divine Brown is now wanted by police after she skipped a court date in Georgia last week.
Brown, 56, whose legal name is Estella Marie Thompson, was ordered to appear before DeKalb Superior Court Judge Desiree S. Peagler for a plea hearing on criminal damage charges. She failed to show, prompting the judge to issue a bench warrant for her arrest. The charges stem from a January arrest alleging she deliberately smashed her landlord’s windshield, causing more than $500 in damage.
When reached by a reporter, Brown claimed she had no knowledge of the warrant. “You kidding me? Oh, wow. I will have to call them immediately,” she said.
The new legal trouble marks another downturn for a woman who once turned infamy into a lucrative career. After the 1995 scandal, Brown reportedly earned millions through interviews, public appearances, and modeling work, including a Penthouse layout and lingerie campaigns. She produced an X-rated docu-drama, “Sunset and Divine: The British Experience,” in which she played herself, and later a documentary titled “The Divine Brown: Million Dollar Hooker.” The former sex worker lived in Beverly Hills and left prostitution behind.
More recently, Brown’s circumstances have shifted dramatically. The mother of two now rents a room in a single-story property in Atlanta, Georgia, according to reports. In 2022, she faced charges of attacking a 13-year-old child in that city, later striking a plea deal on a misdemeanor family violence battery charge.
The current case puts her back in the headlines nearly three decades after the incident that made her name synonymous with celebrity scandal. In June 1995, Grant, then 34, paid Brown $60 for oral sex in his car on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip during a visit to Los Angeles. Police caught and arrested both; their mugshots became instant tabloid fixtures worldwide.
Grant, already a rising British star, was in a long-term relationship with actress Elizabeth Hurley, 30, at the time. The couple had been together since 1987. Hurley would later describe learning of the infidelity to Barbara Walters, saying it left her feeling “like she had been shot.” Despite this, she remained with Grant for five more years; they split in 2000.
The “Love Actually” star faced relatively light consequences: a $1,000 fine and mandatory attendance at an AIDS education program. “Last night I did something completely insane,” he said in a statement following his arrest. “I have hurt people I love and embarrassed people I work with. For both things I am more sorry than I can ever possibly say.”
Brown served six months for lewd conduct in a public place, a sentence complicated by probation violations from 1993 prostitution convictions.
The former sex worker proved adept at monetizing the attention. News of the World paid her $150,000 for a tell-all interview that same year, in which she claimed sleeping with a Black woman had been Grant’s “fantasy.” She also said she refused intercourse because the actor was “too impatient” to pay an additional $40 for a hotel room. “At one point he got carried away and yanked my hair. I said, ‘Honey, you can’t be that rough,'” she told the publication.
Grant himself offered an explanation for the self-destructive act in 2021, speaking on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast. He traced his mindset to anxiety over his first Hollywood film, “Nine Months,” which was scheduled to open weeks later. “I was about to launch my first Hollywood film – my timing was impeccable,” he said. “The film was about to come out a week or two after that, and I had a bad feeling about it. I went to see a screening. Everyone in it was brilliant, but I was so atrocious that I was not in a good frame of mind.”
Brown did not respond to requests for comment on her current legal situation.
