The Sunday Telegraph has apologised to Daniel Johns over an article it published in August of 2019. The article included a photograph of the Silverchair frontman and alleged he was exiting notorious Sydney brothel The Kastle.
The offending was written by Amy Harris and the News Corp paper published it as a front-page exclusive. It cited “sources” who claimed that Johns would sometimes spend up to 18 hours a day at the brothel.
In a statement issued at midnight on Sunday, May 3rd, The Daily Telegraph admitted that “the story was wrong” and the paper now “accepts [Johns] has never been there at any other time”.
A month after the story was published, Johns issued a statement, denying he had ever visited The Kastle and announcing that he had taken up legal proceedings against the newspaper.
“This false reporting has been very hurtful, humiliating, and damaging to me and my family,” wrote Johns in September of 2019.
“It is disappointing that the newspaper has not acknowledged this and apologised despite assertions from both myself, and a representative of the Kastle, that I simply was not, and have never been, there. In fact, I never even knew of its existence.”
In its apology, The Daily Telegraph explained that it now understood “Mr Johns was in the area because he had been visiting a friend who lived in the vicinity of The Kastle.
“We retract the story and we wish to extend a genuine and public apology to Mr Johns and his family for the error and the harm caused,” it said.
The Kastle’s owner, known as Misstress Scarlett, always denied that Johns had ever visited the venue. “We’re unsure of the source of this false information,” she tweeted last year.
“In our 30 year history, we’ve never revealed the identity of clients and take privacy very seriously.”
In response to the apology, Johns tweeted succinctly; “Now back to the music.”
https://twitter.com/DanielJohnsHQ/status/1256818399239262209
