Former glamour model Katie Price has launched a libel action against the publisher’s of New! magazine after it claimed she had an affair with horse trainer Andrew Gould.
Price is demanding damages from publisher Northern and Shell over the story which published in August alongside a photograph of her kissing Gould in a nightclub.
According to legal papers filed at the High Court, Price claims readers of the story would have understood it to mean she was having a sexual relationship with Gould and was cheating on her husband Alex Reid – from whom she has recently separated.
Price claims the magazine presented the photo of her apparently kissing Gould as a ‘shocking pic’which was the ‘final straw’to her marriage – which at then time was just seven months old.
According to the court papers, Price claims New! misrepresented the picture, either deliberately or with reckless disregard for the truth, as the kiss was neither ‘intimate nor passionate”.
Price claims when the picture was taken, Reid and Gould’s wife Polly were both present in the Southend nightclub and she was left with no option but to sue because the magazine refused to apologise to her or retract its allegation.
The magazine should have put the record straight and ensured that the public did not continue under a misapprehension about the nature of the relationship, the writ adds, however it failed to do so and replied to Price’s complaint in a dismissive and insulting way.
Price is seeking damages for a false and unfounded defamatory allegation about her and an injunction banning repetition of the allegation.
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