This site uses cookies to improve your experience and to provide services and advertising.
By continuing to browse, you agree to the use of cookies described in our Cookies Policy.
You may change your settings at any time but this may impact on the functionality of the site.
To learn more see our
Cookies Policy.
Download our app
Blackmail and night-vision pics: George Michael shares his NotW experiences
SINGER GEORGE MICHAEL has taken to Twitter to reveal his experiences with the now-defunct newspaper, the News of the World.
Michael said that he had been asked to talk at the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics, set up in the wake of the phone hacking scandal at the News International title.
However, he declined to take part – saying that the inquiry was “bullsh*t”.
Tweeting yesterday, he said:
Michael said he would be happy to help in such inquiries “the day they make this sham real and start genuinely prosecuting people”.
This morning, he dismissed reports that he was “lying” about being approached by the Leveson Inquiry.
He said that although he did not wish to take part – for the reasons stated above – he had nevertheless sent the Inquiry a letter of apology from “a poor man who was blackmailed into giving News International a completely fictional account of meeting (Michael) on Hampstead Heath”.
The man, Michael said, had been approached at his home by two News of the World reporters claiming they had night vision pictures of him having sex with a celebrity at the London park – and threatened to publish them if he did not take daylight photographs with them “then and there”.
In the letter, the man allegedly told Michael the reporters would not tell him the identity of the celebrity with whom he was supposed to have had the encounter until after he had agreed to the pictures and given his signature.
When they finally told him, the man responded that it wasn’t possible the person had been George Michael – as the man he had met with “was about 6 foot four and had a Dutch accent”, Michael tweeted.
Michael said he thought the letter was a “perfect example of just how horrific the methods of News International had become, and that the inquiry may be more sympathetic to a member of the public than just another celeb complaining about their lot. So I sent it to them.”
He added: “I was going to save it for the memoirs, but f**k it :) “.
Read: Murdoch: Fallout from hacking scandal ‘changed my entire company’
Read: Charlotte Church ‘sickened and disgusted’ by actions uncovered in phone hacking case
Read: Piers Morgan denies presiding over phone hacking at Daily Mirror
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Blackmail George Michael Journalism Media News International News Of The World Twitter