Sienna Miller Settles Phone Hacking Claim Against Tabloid
LONDON (AP) — Actor Sienna Miller on Thursday accepted “substantial” damages from the publisher of British tabloid newspaper The Sun, which she accuses of hacking her phone and leaking news of her pregnancy.
Miller, a performer whose films include “Factory Girl,” “Black Mass” and “The Lost City of Z,” joins a list of dozens of people who have received payments from News Group Newspapers over illegal eavesdropping that took place over a decade ago.
News Group Newspapers has paid millions of pounds to settle lawsuits from hacking victims. Most of the cases have involved the now-defunct News of the World, which was shut down by owner Rupert Murdoch in 2011 after revelations that its employees had snooped on the voice mails of celebrities, politicians and even crime victims in search of scoops.
News Group Newspapers has acknowledged hacking by the News of the World, but not by The Sun, which continues to operate.
Nonetheless Miller, 39, said she felt “fully vindicated” after the publisher agreed to pay her undisclosed “substantial damages” without admitting liability.
Outside court, Miller said journalists and management at the newspaper “very nearly ruined my life. I have certainly seen how they have ruined the lives of others.”
“Their behavior shattered me, damaged my reputation — at times beyond repair — and caused me to accuse my family and friends of selling information that catapulted me into a state of intense paranoia and fear,” said Miller, who was a British tabloid fixture during her relationship with fellow actor Jude Law in the early 2000s.
Miller’s lawyer, David Sherborne, said the payment was “tantamount to an admission of liability” by The Sun.
The lawyer said Miller “was the subject of intense media scrutiny and serious intrusion into her private life from around 2003.”
“In particular, The Sun published numerous intrusive stories about her that contained intimate private details about her relationships and feelings and even her confidential medical information,” he said.
He said Miller accused the then editor of The Sun, Rebekah Brooks, and others of leaking the news of her pregnancy, a leak that had “led her to being unable to trust those closest to her when she really needed them.”
Brooks was tried and acquitted in 2014 of phone hacking.
Others who have settled claims against the publisher this week include the former soccer star Paul Gascoigne, the actor Sean Bean and Sharleen Spiteri, lead singer of the band Texas.
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