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Matt Baron/ShutterstockElton John has emerged victorious in a libel suit against a British tabloid.
According to the BBC, Elton, who has a long history of suing British tabloids and winning, said a report in The Sun that their dog had severely injured a young child during a play date was “false and seriously defamatory.”
The front-page story, which ran in The Sun back in February, claimed that Elton’s spaniel bit a five-year-old girl who was at his home for a play date in 2016. The story said that the dog inflicted “Freddy Krueger-like injuries” on the girl, that it was a “serious attack,” and that Elton and his husband, David Furnish, “failed to make any attempt to find out how the little girl was” after the incident. The story was subsequently picked up by a number of other U.K. publications.
But Elton and David’s lawyer told the judge, “The truth is that the injuries were not serious, and the claimants, far from ignoring the incident, made several inquiries about the girl’s welfare to her father and nanny. Each time it was confirmed the girl was fine.”
The lawyer said that the newspaper accepted the ruling that the allegation was untrue and that it would now apologize to Elton and David, reimburse their legal costs and pay them significant damages.
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