Robbie Williams wins 'gay' libel fight

Quoted from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk

'By Duncan Gardham(Filed: 07/12/2005)
Robbie Williams accepted substantial damages yesterday over an allegation that he was secretly gay and picked up strangers in a nightclub.
At a hearing at the High Court in London, the pop singer's solicitor said a newspaper article had alleged that while Williams was "pretending" that his only sexual relations had been with women "in reality he was a homosexual who had engaged in casual and sordid homosexual encounters with strangers".

The article in the People was published in August last year, shortly before the publication of the singer's biography Feel.
Tom Shields, Williams's solicitor, told Mr Justice Eady that the article, headlined "Robbie's secret gay lover", suggested that Williams was "about to deceive the public" over his sexuality in the forthcoming book.
He said: "It claimed that he had enticed a stranger into a toilet at a club in Manchester where the two men performed a sex act on each other and where Mr Williams requested that stranger to engage in a further sex act.
"It was also alleged that a year later Mr Williams had tried to persuade the same man, and then that man's friend, to engage in similar conduct at another Manchester club and that, when rebuffed, he had gone on to engage in a sexual encounter with another stranger in the streets behind the club."
The court heard that similar allegations were printed in Star magazine and Hot Stars, both published by Northern and Shell. Mr Shields said Mirror Group Newspapers, publishers of the People, and Northern & Shell now accepted that none of the allegations was true.
He added: "Mr Williams is not and never has been homosexual.' '