Richard E Grant cut one of his best friends from his life after a "toxic" betrayal

Appearing on Paloma Faith's Mad Sad Bad podcast, he said: "I thought [she] was one of the five best friends of my life."

He added: "There was a paragraph of such toxicity... it was [an annihilation] of my script that I'd written that was entirely autobiographical.

"I was absolutely devastated, so I copied and pasted that and sent it back and said: 'Twenty-nine years of friendship?'

"My daughter [Olivia] said to me, 'In your heart of hearts, haven't you always known this about this person?' Then she said, 'You've taken too long to answer, I think you've always known.'

"I've not seen that person since."

The Saltburn actor recently admitted he "hasn't really thought about" looking for love again after his wife Joan died in September 2021 aged 74 following an eight-month battle with long cancer.

He told The Sunday Times newspaper's Culture Magazine: "The idea of being 67 and three quarters and taking my kit off is so mortifying, I'd have to be in a Krakatoan cave without a crack of light.

"That may change. I'm hopeful-minded and open-hearted but I'm not looking for it."

He has also opened up about his late wife's sense of humour in the weeks before her death, including warning him off "all the women" they both knew.

Appearing on The Lulu Podcast: Turning Points, he said: "She was hilarious - a month before she died, she went through all the women, the women who were either single, divorced or available or widowed, that we knew.

"And she basically went through all of them like a lioness and gave me a reason why I shouldn't pursue any of them.

"And I knew how much she loved me by doing that..."