Actor Hugh Grant infected with Covid-19 in February

'It started as just a very strange syndrome where I kept breaking into a terrible sweat,' Hugh Grant recalls his symptom. Photo: Handout

English actor Hugh Grant revealed that he contracted Covid-19 earlier in the year, joining the list of celebrities who have been infected by the virus.

In an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert earlier this week, Grant, 60, let on that he caught the coronavirus in February this year.

"It started as just a very strange syndrome where I kept breaking into a terrible sweat. It was like a poncho of sweat, embarrassing really," said the Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994) and Notting Hill (1999) actor.

"Then my eyeballs felt about three sizes too big and this feeling as though some enormous man was sitting on my chest, sort of Harvey Weinstein or someone," Grant continued, referring to the disgraced movie mogul.

Grant added: "I thought, 'I don't know what this is,' and then I was walking down the street one day and I thought 'I can't smell a damn thing,' and you start to panic."

According to researchers, the loss of the sense of smell is one of the symptoms of Covid-19 infection.

Grant panicked even more when he couldn't smell flowers.

"I started sniffing in garbage cans. You know, you want to sniff strangers' armpits because you just can't smell anything," he said.

He eventually went home and sprayed his wife's perfume directly into his face.

"Couldn't smell a thing, but I did go blind," he joked, adding that his wife, Swedish TV producer Anna Eberstein, also contracted the coronavirus in February.

Both of them have since recovered.

Other celebrities who have contracted the coronavirus include actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, British actor Idris Elba, wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Twilight (2008 to 2012) star Robert Pattinson and Braveheart (1995) actor Mel Gibson. – The Straits Times/Asia News Network