SO disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer paid a hooker for sex? So what, says Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who takes the helm again as King Henry VIII in the second season of the Showtime series The Tudors on March 30.

In a funny interview with New York magazine, the Irish actor says "men will be men" when it comes to sex, no matter how good they may appear to be.

JRM was asked by his interviewer if he had heard about the Spitzer scandal in London, where he's currently based. Seeing as our Eliot has made news around the globe, he surely had.

"Yeah, for having sex!," he said, amazed at the hub-bub over the scandal. "Doesn't that border a little on the puritanical? If I know the story right, he had sex with a $15,000-a-night hooker."

When told that Spitzer's infamous encounter with "Kristin," a/k/a Ashley Alexandra Dupre, cost in the region of $4,000, he reckoned the luv guv got a bargain.

"Oh, so he was having sex with a cheap hooker," JRM said. (We have to assume he was kidding . . . right!?)

The Cork actor is in a happy relationship with his long-time girlfriend Reena Hammer, so hooking up with a hooker isn't something he's looking to do.

"I don't patronize hookers. But what I'm saying is, come on, look. Did your president not almost lose his presidency over a blow job? That would never have happened in Henry's time," he says.

The Tudors is chock-full of sex scenes, which JRM maintains is completely necessary.

"These people didn't have TVs, they didn't have cars, they didn't have iPods. They had sex. What else do you think they did?" he asked.