Now 15 sleazy celebs face being unmasked
A STRING of celebrities hiding sordid secrets behind gagging orders face being unmasked in the coming months.
The US publication that this week named a philandering world-famous television actor is said to be preparing further exposés.
It boasted it was the only one ‘with the guts to tell it like it is’ as it humiliated the married star with a two-page account of his encounter with Helen Wood, a prostitute who also had a threesome with footballer Wayne Rooney.
Millions of Americans can legally read all about the lurid claims, but a draconian injunction means they cannot be published in Britain.
More than a dozen High Court injunctions are in place hushing up the extra-marital affairs of the rich and famous.
The acclaimed actor – a father who enjoys a family-man image – was the latest star to be unmasked in the US.
The Supreme Court in London is also poised to rule on whether those living in England and Wales can know the identity of another celebrity – who had an extra-marital threesome in an olive oil bath – even though he has already been exposed in America.
If the UK’s highest court rules against the celebrity, known as ‘PJS’ in legal documents, it could pave the way for other injunctions to be challenged. Even if the court rules in his favour, it is powerless to stem the tide of rumours about him and other stars sweeping the internet.
Yesterday experts said up to 15 more famous names could soon be unmasked. A source at the American publication that named the actor said: ‘Watch this space’, while its editor said ‘millions of people’ would be able to learn the identity of celebrities ‘involved in various transgressions in the UK’.
The secrets that could be revealed include a top football manager’s affair, a ‘figure of trust’ who slept with a famous married man, and a top sportsman who cheated on his wife-to-be with another celebrity.
Last month, a judge at the Appeal Court warned ‘PJS’ that his children would find out about his antics ‘sooner or later’ because of the widespread reports abroad and online.
Media lawyer Mark Stephens, of solicitors Howard Kennedy, said: ‘What the Americans have done, for better or worse, is democratised knowledge.
‘Anyone [who has] a global reputation – as does this actor, the sports stars or any of the others – is going to have to learn to deal with the fact that different parts of the world put different emphases on the rights of free expression versus privacy.’ Bob Satchwell, executive director at the Society of Editors, added: ‘Injunctions are a 19th century remedy which just don’t work in the 21st century. The more they happen, the more they bring our courts into disrepute because they are simply granting orders which they cannot enforce.’
Football stars Ryan Giggs and John Terry, ex-banking boss Fred Goodwin and broadcasters Andrew Marr and Jeremy Clarkson are among those who have tried and failed to maintain injunctions after their affairs were exposed. The actor at the centre of the latest storm – who has been widely named online as well as in the US publication – has given interviews to promote his work in which he mentions his happy family life. He has also posed for celebrity photographers with his wife on his arm.
But when Miss Wood sold her ‘kiss and tell’ story about how he paid her £195 for a session involving a ‘sex toy’, he ran to the courts to muzzle the Press at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds.