Phone-hacking victim Sienna Miller says she planted false stories with friends in an attempt to work out why intimate details of her life were appearing in British tabloids.
The actress and former girlfriend of actor Jude Law says the incident made her paranoid.
She told NBC’s Today show that stories appeared in newspapers that only her mother, sister, boyfriend and best friend knew about, and she accused them of selling stories to the press.
Miller reached a £100,000 settlement with the News of the World, which had hacked into her mobile phone messages.
She said she also became suspicious when she heard people were leaving her mobile messages that she would never get, Associated Press reported.
Miller said of the time the stories were appearing about her: “At the time I was incredibly paranoid.”
She said she also became suspicious when it became clear there were a large number of voicemail messages that friends said they had left and she never received.
“Everything is compromised enormously,” she said. “It had a huge impact on relationships, friendships and my career.”
Once it became clear to her what was going on, Miller said she was still reluctant to take on Rupert Murdoch’s media empire for fear that it could damage her career.
“It was just too horrendous to not expose, and I was really happy that I did,” she said.
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