About a boy! Hugh Grant has second child with 'fab mum' Tinglan Hong

Mail on Sunday's congratulations led Hugh Grant to tweet birth of son Felix

The actor told his closest friends only last week but swore them to secrecy



Hugh Grant has become a father for the second time to a son he has named Felix Chang, The Mail on Sunday can exclusively reveal.

Tinglan Hong, the mother of the Notting Hill star’s 16-month-old daughter Tabitha, gave birth on December 29 and registered the new arrival on Valentine’s Day.

According to the birth certificate, Felix Chang was born at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, West London – where the Duchess of Cambridge is expected to have her child.

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Holding the baby: Hugh Grant (pictured with a baby in About A Boy) has become a father for the second time to a son he has named Felix Chang

It reveals the boy’s full name as Felix Chang Hong Grant. Felix is the Latin word for lucky and Chang in Chinese means long-lasting.

It is understood the actor told his closest friends only in the last week, but swore them to secrecy. His ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley, who is godmother to Tabitha, was among those informed.

Grant decided to make the news public yesterday after being contacted by The Mail on Sunday with a congratulatory message.

Minutes later, at 3.19pm, Grant posted a message on his Twitter page saying: ‘In answer to some journos. Am thrilled my daughter now has a brother. Adore them both to an uncool degree. They have a fab mum.’

Grant tweeted again at 6.44pm: ‘And to be crystal clear. I am the Daddy.’

The 52-year-old star of Love Actually and About A Boy is on the certificate as the child’s father under his full name Hugh John Mungo Grant with his occupation listed as ‘actor’.

Revelation: Hugh Grant announced yesterday that he had had a second child with Tinglan Hong Clarification: The actor later tweeted 'I am the Daddy' to any followers who were confused

Miss Hong, 32, who lives at the £1.2 million terrace house in Fulham, West London bought for her by Grant last year, lists her occupation as ‘housewife’.

Felix’s birth was registered at Westminster Register Office five days later than is technically permitted by Westminster City Council rules. These state that parents should register their children within 42 days of their baby’s arrival.

According to the certificate, the birth was registered by ‘the signature of Tinglan Hong [and a] statutory declaration made by Hugh John Mungo Grant on January 17’.

A statutory declaration of acknowledgement of parentage, which must be made in front of a magistrate, Justice of the Peace or solicitor, can be used to register a birth if the child’s parents are unmarried and one parent is unable to attend the registration.

Felix’s arrival comes almost 17 months after Miss Hong gave birth to the couple’s first child, daughter Tabitha Xaio Xi Hong Grant, at London’s Portland Hospital.

Mother to his children: Hong (pictured with Grant in 2011) gave birth to the couple's first child, daughter Tabitha Xaio Xi Hong Grant 17 months before the arrival of Felix

In an interview with American chat show host Ellen DeGeneres last April, Grant admitted that while coming as something of a shock, fatherhood had had a very positive ‘life-changing’ effect on him.

‘Everyone was right all these years, saying: “Hugh, why don’t you have some children? It changes your life.” Now that I have a child, it is life-changing. I recommend it. Get some.

‘I can’t pretend it wasn’t a little bit of a surprise. But it’s a very nice surprise. In fact, the baby’s name in Chinese, because the mother’s is Chinese, means ‘happy surprise’.

Miss Hong, who was born in Zhejiang province in eastern China and moved to Britain in 2003, is understood to have met Grant in a Chelsea wine bar 2008.

The pair struck up an unlikely friendship before embarking on a relationship in January 2011.

Tabitha’s arrival was kept secret for two months until the actor’s spokesman released a statement confirming the birth but adding that Grant – who rose to fame in Four Weddings And A Funeral in 1994 – was no longer in a relationship with Miss Hong.

It read: ‘I can confirm that Hugh Grant is the delighted father of a baby girl. He and the mother had a fleeting affair and while this was not planned, Hugh could not be happier or more supportive.’

'It changes your life': Grant admitted that while it came as something of a shock, fatherhood had had a very positive 'life-changing' effect on him

Giving evidence at the Leveson Inquiry in November 2011, Grant said he regretted authorising his publicist to describe the relationship as ‘fleeting’.

‘I felt it was important to be honest and not have a wrong version, a twisted version, appear in the papers, which was that she was my girlfriend who had been dumped when she got pregnant, which was simply not the case, or that it was a planned pregnancy that I ran away from,’ he said.

‘I was protecting her reputation – I didn’t want her to appear to be a jilted girlfriend. I was protecting mine – I didn’t want it to seem that I was a monster who ran away from his girlfriend.

‘It’s true I’ve been given a hard time for using those words because . . .which is ironic seeing as it’s actually the truth, but that doesn’t seem to be very popular.’

The star has enjoyed romances in the past two decades with a string of high-profile women but has never married.

In 2008, Miss Hong, who is affectionately known as Ting Ting to her friends and has a degree in hotel management from the University of Surrey, embarked on an 18-month relationship with specialist car dealer Robert Hodge, 56, a divorced father of four from Wandsworth, South West London whom she met in 2006.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday in 2011, Mr Hodge claimed Miss Hong first met Grant in late 2008 on a night out with friends at Brinkley’s wine bar, a venue popular with well-heeled locals including England footballer Frank Lampard and cricketer Kevin Pietersen.

‘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.’

Miss Hong broke off the relationship with Mr Hodge in early 2010.

In January 2011, Miss Hong was photographed with Grant in the press for the first time. This was around the time when she fell pregnant with the couple’s first child.

Yesterday a spokeswoman for Grant said she had no further comment to make.

VIDEO Hugh Grant on being a dad for the first time...



Ellen Show interview from last year