OK! Triumphs in Zeta-Jones Wedding Photo War

Britain's House of Lords rules that Hello! breached rival celebrity weekly's confidentiality by publishing paparazzi photos of Catherine Zeta-Jones' 2000 wedding to Michael Douglas after OK! paid $2 million for exclusive

By Sarah Hall May 02, 2007 5:19 PMTags

Hello! will pay for making Catherine Zeta-Jones look fat on her wedding day.

Ending a long-running legal battle over photographs from the actress' 2000 wedding to Michael Douglas, Britain's House of Lords ruled Wednesday that the magazine had breached rival celebrity weekly OK!'s confidentiality by publishing unauthorized photos of the event.

OK! paid $2 million for the exclusive right to cover the nuptials, but was scooped by Hello! when the latter mag rushed paparazzi snaps of the event into publication a full three days before the Zeta-Jones-approved version hit newsstands.

Outraged by Hello!'s sneaky tactics, OK! successfully sued the weekly in Britain's High Court in 2003, aided by impassioned testimony from Zeta-Jones, who complained Hello!'s lesser quality snaps were "unflattering," "sleazy" and, worst of all,  made her appear "large."

"The quality was what every bride would hate to have out there," the actress told the court.

Though the High Court ruled in favor of OK!, the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling in 2005, leading the magazine to take the matter to Britain's most powerful court in a last ditch effort to reclaim what it considered its due.

The House of Lords ordered Hello! to pay $2 million in damages, but stopped short of forcing the magazine to shoulder its rival's court fees, stating that there was no evidence Hello! had intentionally injured OK!'s business.

Under the judgment, the two publications are each on the hook for a significant chunk of the approximately $16 million in legal expenses racked up over the course of the drawn-out court battle.

Zeta-Jones and Douglas, who won damages of $29,000 for emotional distress and invasion of privacy in the 2003 case, did not participate in the House of Lords case.