Boy George Pays Up
Boy George didn't really want to hurt a nightclub employee.
The heavily made-up singer (real name: George O'Dowd) agreed Wednesday to pay $18,000 in libel damages to Andrew Thompson, a former membership secretary at the defunct Sweet Suite nightclub in London.
The fine stems from a June 2002 dispute between the '80s icon and Thompson during which the gender-bending entertainer reportedly popped Thompson in the face, sending him to the hospital with a broken nose.
Though the case never went to court, Boy George paid Thompson a settlement that he classified as a "ridiculous amount of money" in a November 2002 interview in Boyz magazine.
It was that very interview that fanned the flames of Thompson's anger.
In the article, Boy George placed the blame for the nightclub incident on Thompson, claiming that the secretary had provoked him by insulting him and deserved to be punched hard.
A month later, Boy George repeated his accusations in London's Sunday Express, once again insinuating that Thompson was at fault for the nightclub brawl.
Thompson demanded that the singer apologize and withdraw the allegations, but Boy George refused.
Thompson responded by taking the singer to court for defamation.
At the time of the legal action against him, Boy George waxed defiant on the subject of conceding to Thompson.
"He won't get a penny out of me, even if I have to leave the country," he told London's Express in July 2003. "I'm disgusted by it."
However, on Wednesday, the entertainer sang a different tune, agreeing to pay the damages and to apologize for saying Thompson was deserving of the attack.
"The defendant has acknowledged that he should not have assaulted the claimant and he was wrong to have said the claimant deserved to be hit," Hanna Basha, Thompson's solicitor stated. "To mark this, he has agreed to join in this statement and publicly withdraw the allegations and apologize for the for the distress that they have caused to the claimant.
"In addition he has agreed to pay substantial damages of $18,000 to the claimant and the claimant's legal cost in the matter."
Ban Mawson, legal counsel for Boy George, told the judge that his client would not be making any more accusatory statements about Thompson--at least not in print.
"The defendant undertakes to the court through me not to republish the allegations that the claimant provoked the attack or deserved to be hit and apologizes to the claimant for making these allegations," Mawson said.
Last fall, the Karma Chameleon singer, nowadays a club deejay, teamed with Rosie O'Donnell to bring the musical Taboo, stateside.
Though the colorful production was a critical success in London, it bombed on Broadway after only 16 previews and 100 performances, ultimately costing O'Donnell in the neighborhood of $10 million.
"Many lessons were learned, and so it goes," O'Donnell said in a statement at the time.
Maybe Boy George, too, has learned his lesson.
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