Big Brother contestant Danielle Lloyd has launched a legal battle for libel damages against the Daily Mirror.
Lloyd is set to put her love life under the microscope at the Royal Courts of Justice, as she denies allegations that she had sex with rapper 50 Cent.
The model is suing over a Mirror newspaper and website story on 11 July, headed “Fiddy’s no diddy”, which she claims is defamatory.
She is also suing over stories on two separate websites, headed “Danielle Lloyd’s steamy sex session with 50 Cent” and “Marcus Bent No Longer Bangs This Chick”, which she says were published as a result of the Mirror story.
According to a High Court writ, the Mirror story claimed she had sexually propositioned the rapped 50 Cent and had sex with him, thus betraying her boyfriend Marcus Bent.
Lloyd, who denies the allegations, says that the stories have severely damaged her professional and personal reputations, and that she has suffered distress and embarrassment.
She argues that the Mirror published the story, despite knowing it was false, after journalist Sarah Tetteh phoned her publicity agent Ray Levine, who stressed at least three times that if she had been on a date with 50 Cent there had been no sexual element.
The writ says that publishers MGN knew before publication that an authoritative source close to her had stated that the crux of the story was false, and this should be contrasted with the Mirror’s apparent “evidence” of a “bystander”.
Lloyd says that whoever wrote the story would have monitoring the gossip pages of other tabloids, and would have read in the Daily Star on 4 July that she was no longer in a relationship with Marcus Bent.
She also says the hurt has been increased by the fact that Levine’s denial was not included in the story, or even alluded to. Lloyd says she fears that unless restrained by an injunction, MGN will repeat the allegations at the centre of her claim, and is seeking an injunction banning repetition of the claims.
The writ was issued by her solicitors Carter-Ruck.
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