Tinglan Hong is a 45-year-old Chinese businesswoman living in London. She is known publicly as the former partner of British actor Hugh Grant and the mother of two of his five children. Born in April 1980 in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, she arrived in Britain in 2003, spent years working as a restaurant receptionist in Wimbledon, and became one of the most searched names in British celebrity news when her pregnancy became public in 2011. Her April 1980 birth date is confirmed by UK Companies House registration, one of the few primary documents on record about a woman who has spent most of her adult life avoiding public attention. She never gave a press interview. She took the tabloids to court instead.
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| Full name | Tinglan “Tin Tin” Hong (洪婷兰) |
| Born | April 1980, Lishui, Zhejiang Province, China |
| Moved to UK | 2003 |
| Education | University of Surrey; Kellogg Executive Education |
| Former role | Receptionist, Bayee Village restaurant, Wimbledon |
| Children with Hugh Grant | Tabitha Xiao Xi Grant (2011), Felix Chang Hong Grant (2012) |
| Company | Bamboo Icon Ltd (founded November 2015, dissolved July 2022) |
From Lishui to London
Hong’s family in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, had a business background. Her father ran his own company. Her mother was a local businesswoman.
She moved to Britain at 23, studied hotel management at the University of Surrey in Guildford, then settled in London. By around 2004, she was working at Bayee Village, a Chinese restaurant in Wimbledon, South London. She stayed for approximately seven years. Colleagues called her “Tin Tin.” She regularly entertained guests by singing karaoke. Grant was a regular customer there.
The restaurant’s owner, Marco Yu, told the Sunday Mirror: “She’s a nice girl and a good worker. Everybody liked her. She comes from a good family and has a master’s degree in travel and tourism so is very bright.”
Before Grant: The Relationship Most Articles Skip
Before any of this became tabloid material, Hong was with Robert Hodge, a specialist car dealer and divorced father of four from South West London. They met in 2006 and were together on and off for several years.
In 2008, she was at Brinkley’s wine bar in Chelsea one evening with friends. Grant was there. She took a photograph with him and showed it to Hodge the following day. Both laughed it off.
Hodge later told the Mail on Sunday: “The next day she showed me this photograph on her phone with Hugh Grant. We laughed about it and she’d bring it out to show people but I didn’t think any more about it.”
They attended the Belgian Grand Prix together in September 2008 and spent Christmas and New Year 2008-2009 on a ski holiday in Chamonix in the French Alps. His children, ranging from 18 to 32 at the time, took to her well. His elderly parents met her for Sunday lunch and thought she was great. She helped in the kitchen and, according to Hodge, treated his parents with enormous respect.
They split in early 2010. No reason was ever made public.
How She and Grant Got Together
By late 2010, Grant was visiting Bayee Village regularly. The two had started seeing each other.
In October 2010, Grant was in Haikou on Hainan Island, playing in the Mission Hills Star Trophy celebrity pro-am, alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones, Christian Slater and Matthew McConaughey. At a press conference there, he told reporters: “I am very happy to contemplate a Chinese girlfriend. I must say I’m very charmed by Chinese women so far. I’ve only been here 24 hours, but I’ve fallen in love four times.” Asked to confirm that number: “Well, five now.”
By January 2011, they were seen together publicly for the first time, at a pub in Fulham. The relationship was private and on-and-off. Neither ever confirmed it publicly. When their daughter was born later that year, Grant’s publicist described it as a “fleeting affair,” a phrase Grant walked back at the Leveson Inquiry, saying it had been drafted hurriedly over the phone from a film set in Germany. “I was dressed as a cannibal at the time,” he told the inquiry.
By the summer of 2011, Hong was pregnant with their first child.
Their Two Children
Tabitha, Born September 2011
Tabitha was born by caesarean section at the Portland Private Hospital in central London on the afternoon of 26 September 2011. Hong had reportedly been admitted under the alias “Sophie” during her hospital stay. Grant kept his distance from the hospital deliberately. In a statement obtained by The Guardian, he explained:
“I have had too many experiences of hospital staff being paid to leak information to the press. It was a determination to try and protect Tinglan and my child from a press firestorm.”
He visited the following day, spent around 30 minutes with his daughter, then flew to Scotland. Two days after Tabitha was born, he teed off at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews, a decision that drew public criticism at the time.
Three days before her birth, he had posted on Twitter: “Recently, in my life, everything is beautiful! I’m happy.”
Grant chose the name Tabitha. Hong chose the middle name Xiao Xi, meaning “happy surprise” in Mandarin. Elizabeth Hurley is Tabitha’s godmother, confirmed on her IMDB page. Grant is godfather to Hurley’s son Damian in return.
Felix, Born Three Months After Grant’s Son With Eberstein
Felix was born at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, West London, on 29 December 2012. His birth certificate was registered on 14 February 2013, Valentine’s Day. Grant had told a small circle of friends beforehand, swearing them to secrecy. Hurley was among those informed.
Grant announced the birth on Twitter: “Am thrilled my daughter now has a brother. Adore them both to an uncool degree. They have a fab mum.” A second post followed within minutes: “And to be crystal clear. I am the Daddy.”
The name carries meaning in two languages. Felix is Latin for “lucky.” Chang is Chinese for “long-lasting.” Hong is his mother’s surname. He arrived just over three months after Grant’s son John Mungo, born to Anna Eberstein on 3 September 2012, a timeline the tabloids spent considerable effort covering. People Magazine has a full account of all five of Grant’s children.
The Press Siege and the Court Case
After Tabitha’s birth in autumn 2011, photographers moved in on Hong’s Fulham home in numbers that the High Court later addressed directly.
At its worst, more than ten paparazzi camped outside overnight, including in heavy rain. She was followed while driving with her infant daughter in the car. She cancelled medical appointments. She changed her mobile number after receiving abusive calls from withheld numbers following Grant’s BBC Question Time appearance in July 2011. One call carried a direct message: “Tell Hugh Grant to shut the f** up.”*
On 10 November 2011, things reached a breaking point. Hong’s 63-year-old mother went outside to photograph a paparazzo sitting in a parked car nearby. According to Grant’s sworn testimony at the Leveson Inquiry, the photographer “wound the window down, shouted abuse at her and then as she crossed the road menaced her with his car.”
The following day, Mr Justice Tugendhat granted an emergency injunction under the Prevention from Harassment Act 1997. The case was formally titled Ting Lan Hong v Persons Unknown. The full judgment is documented on the Inforrm media law record.
Grant gave evidence at the Leveson Inquiry on 21 November 2011, calling freelance paparazzi a “privacy invasion industry” and laying out in detail what Hong and her mother had faced. His full testimony is part of the official public record.
Speaking to The Guardian in early 2012, he said: “Had we not got the injunction, I’m sure she’d be in China by now. She is a good person, a nice person; funny, clever, great mother. And she’s been very badly treated by the media.”
By July 2012, celebrity photo agency Splash News formally committed not to approach within 100 metres of her home, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
Tinglan Hong’s Career in Media
In November 2015, Hong incorporated Bamboo Icon Ltd at Companies House (Company No. 09864235), registered at 64 Quarrendon Street, Fulham, London SW6. She held more than 75% of shares and voting rights as the sole person with significant control.
The registered business activity, SIC code 90020, covers support activities to the performing arts, placing the company squarely in the creative and entertainment sector. Bamboo Icon operated as an international media consultancy, connecting clients across Europe and Asia in film, television, fashion, marketing and lifestyle.
According to her professional history, she served as Sole Representative of Shanghai Media Group in London from July 2017 to August 2022. Shanghai Media Group (SMG) is one of China’s largest media organisations, with assets exceeding RMB 61 billion across television, radio, film, digital streaming and live entertainment.
Bamboo Icon Ltd was dissolved on 26 July 2022, per UK Companies House. The SMG representative role ended the following month.
Where Is Tinglan Hong Now?
Companies House records confirm her country of residence as England as of the company’s dissolution in July 2022. She still lives in the UK.
Per her LinkedIn profile, her current role is at Origin International Group Holdings. Her education now includes Kellogg Executive Education at Northwestern University, one of the top-ranked business schools in the United States.
She has no public social media accounts. She has not been covered by press since the early 2010s. She has never spoken to a journalist.
Tabitha is 14. Felix is 13.
She has not spoken to the press since 2011. From a restaurant in Wimbledon to the London desk of one of China’s biggest media groups, to executive education at one of America’s top business schools. All of it quiet. None of it performed for anyone.
Sources: UK Companies House | Leveson Inquiry Official Transcript | Hollywood Reporter | People Magazine | IMDB | Inforrm
