The Stunning Evolution Of Elizabeth Hurley's Son Damian

Before he was even born, Damian Hurley became an unwitting tabloid darling. This is because his mother, "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" star Elizabeth Hurley, was involved in a messy paternity battle with producer Steve Bing, who said he wasn't certain that the child was his. After revealing that she was pregnant in 2001, Hurley expressed hurt over Bing's revelation that he hadn't considered them an exclusive couple. As reported by BBC News, Bing also said at the time, "It is her choice to be a single mother."

Elizabeth celebrated Damian's arrival on April 4, 2002. Just two weeks later, Bing initiated the paternity test process and discovered that he really was Damian's biological father. But Elizabeth refused to accept some hefty child support payments from her ex, who also played no role in Damian's upbringing.

While his bio father wasn't a part of his life, Damian has several famous godfathers, including singer Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, and Elizabeth's close friend (and ex-boyfriend), Hugh Grant. Luckily for Damian, these father figures have been deeply committed to their roles as he has grown up in the spotlight.

Unfortunately, the circumstances surrounding Damian Hurley's birth made him an object of interest for the media. This also meant that Elizabeth Hurley had to read some vile things about herself and her young child. Per a 2004 Irish Examiner report, a furious Elton John repeated some of the comments, including the cruel remarks the Mail on Sunday journalist Lauren Booth made about Damian's appearance. The "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)" singer revealed that he and his husband were ready to fight dirty for their godson's honor, saying, "It's disgusting. This is a child, a beautiful child. ... We were going to [get] barrels of pig s**t and put it through her letterbox."

As he grew older, Damian became a popular target for the paparazzi as well. While living in London, dozens of them would harass him and his mother when she took him to Wetherby Prep, a school previously attended by two British royals: Prince William and Prince Harry. In an interview with The Times, Elizabeth recalled her son once grabbing an umbrella and telling her, "I'm going to hit those men if they try to take your picture."

The mother and son eventually retreated to the Gloucestershire countryside in pursuit of a more peaceful life on a farm. They were joined by Elizabeth's then-fiance, Arun Nayar. "I used to take the little runt piglets into my bed and sleep with them," Damian told The Standard in 2026. So pigs were a part his early life, though not in the way his godfather suggested.

In 2011, Elizabeth Hurley joined the "Gossip Girl" cast, and Damian Hurley began attending the Summer Fields boarding school in Oxford. It wasn't a total escape from the photogs, but Damian discovered that his fellow students were more than happy to help him deter a few dogged paparazzi by flinging water balloons at them. "I have very fond memories of that school," he told I-M Magazine in 2024. He also has some fond memories of his time away from school, some of which he spent with his mom on the "Gossip Girl" set. It was there that he really began falling in love with the family business. "I'd sneak into the editing suite. They'd let me call action, call cut," Damian said on "The View" in 2024.

Damian also made fast friends with Blake Lively, who played Serena van der Woodsen on "Gossip Girl." He recalled, "I learned all her lines, and I'd hide on set with her and whisper them if she forgot them." He even got to hang out with Lively when he was 7 years old. "She took me to — it was an ice cream place in New York ... Serendipity in New York, and it was amazing," he recalled to journalist Rose Gallagher in an Instagram video. He added that this was around the time Lively was dating Leonardo DiCaprio.

Damian's mom quickly realized he had become enchanted by the entertainment biz. "He was like, 'Oh, I wish all my life had been like this," she told People in 2024 of his reaction to being on set with her. It was around the same time that he discovered he was more passionate about being behind the camera.

When he was 8 years old, Damian Hurley got a camera and began honing his directorial skills. On "Radio Andy" in 2024, he revealed that he even convinced Elizabeth Hurley and Hugh Grant to appear in some of his short films. Host Andy Cohen was surprised by this revelation, given the "Notting Hill" actor's reputation for being a bit of a grouch (Grant has even complained about filming his most joyous "Love Actually" scene). Cohen was even more surprised that one of Damian's scenes required Grant to ask Elizabeth to marry him on a plane, which he gamely did. "I mean, if TMZ got that footage of Hugh proposing to you on an airplane ..." Cohen said to Elizabeth during the Hurleys' joint interview.

Damian revealed that he still has the footage, and he also filmed Elizabeth and her ex shooting a scene that wasn't nearly as romantic. "I made her chase my long-suffering godfather Hugh Grant around Zurich airport with a fake dagger, bellowing that she was going to skin him alive," he recalled to Tatler, adding that his art got dangerously close to landing his mother in handcuffs — and not the movie prop kind.

Damian told The Times many of his early plotlines involved getting knocked up and being unfaithful — the latter of which Grant was when he dated Elizabeth. Damian also revealed that Grant told him to stick to directing, which he later discovered was wise counsel. Damian clearly had a natural talent for it, too, considering that he once convinced his godfather to play a bald, crooked judge.

In 2014, Elizabeth Hurley began shooting the E! series "The Royals," in which she played a fictitious queen. "For me this is like sex, drugs and rock 'n roll at Windsor Castle," she said on "Today" (via the Mirror) before its 2015 premiere. "I don't want [Damian] to read the scripts and I certainly don't want him to watch it!" However, she did let her son visit "The Royals" set. As he did on "Gossip Girl," Damian befriended his mom's costars and even helped them rehearse their dialogue. "Everybody always said, 'You'll be [on the show] one day, Damian,' and patted him on the head," Elizabeth recalled to E! News in 2016.

Well, it sounds like Elizabeth's costars weren't just giving an eager young actor false hope; Damian actually did get cast on the show as a royal-turned-reality show star named Prince Hansel von Liechtenstein. The role called for him to drop his posh British accent and sound a lot more pompous, petulant, and even a little bit pouty. In a 2016 interview with ET, Damian's costars William Moseley and Alexandra Park agreed that he's nothing like his character in real life, and his performance received a rave review from the latter. "He's hysterical — he killed it!" she gushed. Park also said of Damian's appearance, "Every year, I'm like, 'Jesus, Damian!' He looks like a Calvin Klein model."

While people were beginning to notice that her son was rather photogenic, Elizabeth said during a 2016 appearance on "Lorraine" that she still believed he was more interested in directing. "I think he wants to run a studio," she added. "Maybe employ his aging geriatric mother." Let's just put a pin in that thought for now.

As a teen, Damian Hurley attended Wellington College in Berkshire. He took his studies so seriously that he didn't like it when his mom didn't treat parent-teacher meetings with the gravity he apparently felt like they deserved. "He doesn't like me being too jokey with his teachers," she told The Telegraph in 2017. Elizabeth Hurley's stance on the matter was that such conversations about a child's education never make much difference in their academic development, but this didn't mean she was flippant about Damian's studies.

In a 2017 interview with People that same year, Elizabeth explained why she wanted Damian to remain committed to getting an education, even if he decided to pursue a career in Hollywood. "I just think it makes you a more interesting person," she said. "I always say, you don't want to be a bore at dinner. You have to know geography, you need to know history, you need to know ancient history, it's interesting." 

But by this point you've likely realized that Damian's own personal history would make a dinner conversation far from boring — and it just keeps getting more fascinating. After his portrayal of the Prince of Liechtenstein as a whiny, obnoxious narcissist on "The Royals," he told The Standard in 2023, "Bizarrely I was sat next to the real Crown Prince of Liechtenstein at dinner last summer, who had seen the show!" It's not exactly ancient history, but what dinner guest wouldn't be dying to know what the prince said about Damian's performance?

While there might be some people who had fascinating dinner conversations with Damian Hurley about the bygone eras he learned about in school, there was another, far more modern topic his classmates were undoubtedly whispering about: his mother's bikini photos. Elizabeth Hurley has posted countless swimsuit snapshots on social media to promote her swimwear line, Elizabeth Hurley Beach, and after she revealed that Damian Hurley had taken some of the photos, the mother and son spent years defending Elizabeth's photographer pick. In a 2018 appearance on "Watch What Happens Live," Elizabeth informed her critics, "He's got a really good eye, and he's studying photography."

The following year, Elizabeth told the Daily Mail that she wasn't making her son take every one of those promotional pictures. "He took one or two shots ages ago and that was it. ... I can assure you I do not drag him to Mauritius every weekend to take my picture," she clarified. But interest in this aspect of Elizabeth and Damian's mother-son dynamic hadn't died down by 2024, when Damian told The Times, "It's business. We don't think about it for any more than point, press, done, post."

Two years later, Damian had to address the images yet again in an interview with The Standard. He gave those who found the snapshots strange something else to talk about by revealing that mildly spicy photography is even more of a family affair for him. "My grandma's taken so many thirst traps of me," he said. "She's photographed me in a shower before for an ad for something. We all jump in for my mom."

We've seen a lot of daughters follow in their model moms' footsteps, and in 2019, Damian Hurley became a rarer example of a nepo son embracing the same beauty career as his mother. After he was photographed by Steven Meisel for a Pat McGrath Labs ad campaign, legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath told British Vogue, "A supermodel is born." And Damian definitely looked the part with glowy skin and an impeccable blowout.

Damian made waves again when he attended the launch of a new Pat McGrath makeup line wearing a suit that was an homage to Elizabeth Hurley's famous safety-pin dress designed by Gianni Versace. Damian's outfit also came from the famed fashion house, courtesy of Gianni's sister. "It was beyond flattering that Donatella [Versace] wanted to make a suit for me," Damian told The Telegraph.

Damian seemed destined for a fashion career. Of his close bond with the late designer Valentino Garavani, he told The Standard, "I remember I'd do little fashion shows for him from when I was 12 or 13 and he'd make such subtle, brilliant changes to a look or to something that I was doing." Damian's fashion education continued in 2020 when he did another ad campaign for McGrath. This time, he was joined by supermodels Irina Shayk and Naomi Campbell, the latter of whom he already knew well. Campbell also gave Damian some modeling advice that stuck with him, which he passed along to The Times: "You have to have two thoughts when you're looking into the camera, either 'f*** me' or 'f*** you.'" He signed with IMG Models shortly after the photoshoot, so it seems her words of wisdom served him well.

Damian Hurley told I-M Magazine that he had to leave school for his first Pat McGrath photoshoot in New York, and he rushed back to take his A-levels — which he aced. He completed high school in 2020, and two years later, he celebrated his drama school graduation with Elizabeth Hurley and her ex-husband, Arun Nayar. "Mama and Daddyo at graduation with mee," he captioned an Instagram photo of the trio posing together. Although Elizabeth and Nayar separated in 2010 after three years of marriage, the entrepreneur remained close with Damian. "Arun is Damian's daddy and a very good one too, they see each other a lot," Hurley told the Daily Mail in 2018.

Damian's biological dad died in 2020, and Steve Bing's father successfully kept Damian from receiving millions from a family trust fund. While it seems that Damian and Bing never had a father-son relationship, Damian did tell The Times that he did meet Bing at some point. "Maybe I'll write a book one day," he said.

After spending most of his life in a single-parent household, Damian's relationship with his mom remained solid as he entered adulthood. "[We] have complete conversations just nodding and shaking our heads," he told The Times of their uncanny connection in 2024. And they were even on the same wardrobe wavelength. "I steal [Elizabeth's] leather trousers all the time when we're the same size," he admitted.

In 2022, Damien Hurley made his directing dreams come true by getting behind the camera for "Strictly Confidential," a full-length feature that he wrote himself. When he was a child, his mother had told him that she would star in his first major movie, and she was true to her word. In fact, she even produced it.

Damien made the role he originally intended for Elizabeth larger — and spicier. "I started thinking, 'How can I make it sexier?' Damien recalled to Vogue in 2024. His idea was to swap one character's gender and give that part to his mom. This meant that her love interest would be another woman, who was played by Pear Chiravara. "Of course, the second I had that part, it made total sense to beg — beg — my mighty mother to come on board," Damian said. Luckily, Elizabeth was happy that her role had been expanded.

Before the film's premiere, Damien and Elizabeth embarked on one of the strangest press tours ever, as a lot of it involved trying to convince people that it wasn't weird at all that Damien had directed a love scene starring his mom. "There actually isn't any nudity," Elizabeth assured People. After weeks of discussing the scene, they attended a "Strictly Confidential" screening in May 2024. Arun Nayar and Hugh Grant showed up to support Damian, who didn't exactly win critics over with his first pass at a feature. However, he didn't let the bad reviews get him down. "There was one from someone really prestigious, and the entire review was 'son directs mother in a lesbian sex scene, need I say more,'" he told The Standard. "I have that framed in my bathroom. I love it."

Forget Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau — the most random new celebrity relationship of 2025 was that of Elizabeth Hurley and "Achy Breaky Heart" hitmaker Billy Ray Cyrus. Damien Hurley expressed his approval of the pair when he responded to their April 2025 Instagram hard launch with a party face and heart emoji. A few months later, he even included Billy Ray in a Father's Day post with the caption, "Happy Fathers' Day to my beautiful daddy and some favourite men in my life."

In late June 2025, Damian hung out with Miley Cyrus, who had recently reconciled with Billy Ray. "The babies are all grown up," Elizabeth captioned an Instagram photo of her son and Miley watching the "Party in the U.S.A." singer's movie "Something Beautiful." But this transcontinental lovefest wasn't enough to convince some people that Damian supported his mom's new relationship. In November 2025, the Daily Mail reported that Damian and Elizabeth had stopped spending as much time together after she started dating Billy Ray. "Perhaps Damian would sooner see her alone," a source said.

But in a post on his Instagram Story, Damian insisted that there was no such drama. "For the record: I adore @billyraycyrus and think he's one of the sweetest men I've ever met," he wrote (via the Mirror). "I love seeing my mom so happy." If he's ever in need of screenplay inspiration, maybe Damian should draw from this Hallmark love story brought to life: A British bombshell and an American country singer find love, despite their cultural differences. It might just blow up and become his achy breakout hit.