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  1. Media Law
June 25, 2007

Payout for Beckham over “everyone hates me” mag story

By Roger Pearson

Victoria Beckham today accepted a public apology and ‘substantial’but undisclosed libel damages a magazine story headed ‘Posh Breaks down – Why Does Everyone Hate Me?”.

Mr Justice David Eady was told at London’s High Court this morning that the article appeared in the 30 April edition of Star Magazine which claimed she was ‘proving hugely unpopular in the US.”

Her counsel, Gerrard Tyrrell said that the piece claimed that even the crew from her TV show had revealed that they could not stand her.

He said : ‘The article went on to state that when Ms Beckham’s husband ‘calls she shouts orders at him on the phone, like he’s one of her kids.'”

It also quoted an ‘insider’who described her as ‘coming off as a grade A bitch.”

Tyrrell told the judge : ‘The facts of the matter are that the allegations that were made in the article are untrue and unfounded. The true position is that when the article was published filming had not yet commenced on Ms Beckham’s new US TV show and accordingly nobody in the crew could possibly have commented on her alleged behaviour. The story was therefore completely inaccurate and defamatory of Ms Beckham.”

Tyrrell said the magazine had now apologised and accepted that the allegations should never have been published. It has also agreed to pay her damages and legal costs.

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For the magazine barrister Kate Wilson said they accepted that the allegations were untrue. She continued : ‘the defendant apologises to Ms Beckham for the distress and embarrassment caused to her.”

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