Silverchair Frontman & King Of Newy Daniel Johns Sues The Sunday Telegraph For Defamation

daniel johns silverchair

Silverchair frontman and the most famous person to come out of Newcastle, Daniel Johns, has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Sunday Telegraph for a wild story they published in August 2019.

Johns, 40, has categorically denied the Telegraph’s allegations, claiming that he was a frequent visitor of The Kastle brothel in Newcastle.

“Today, I commenced defamation proceedings in the Supreme Court of Victoria against The Sunday Telegraph newspaper, its editor and a journalist,” the statement on Facebook read.

The story in question was posted on August 11, where a photo of Johns was front page news with the headline “King of the Kastle”. But the headline wasn’t even the worst of it. The article claimed that Johns was a regular patron of the brothel, which allegedly specialises in “bondage, S&M, brown showers and adult babies,” according to Johns’ statement. The story also alleged that Johns was spending up to 18 hours per day at the establishment, which is… a lot of time to spend anywhere.

John is taking legal action, claiming that the article has been humiliating and hurtful to him and his family, and most importantly, is allegedly false. According to a statement given to The Age and SMH, Johns is pursuing legal action against the writer of the article, the editor and the publication itself.

“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.”

The club’s owner has also publicly supported Johns’ claims, releasing the following tweet the day the article was first published.

From the sounds of his statement, legal action wasn’t Johns’ first port of call. The Silverchair frontman claims that he has reached out to the newspaper for “an apology and retraction” of the story, but the Sunday Telegraph have not complied.

“This false reporting has been very hurtful, humiliating, and damaging to me and my family,” Johns’ statement read.

Honestly, fair enough. Johns isn’t exactly a saint, but the article in question definitely caused unnecessary damage to his career, and he deserves to be compensated for that. The claims made against Johns’ have obviously caused damage, however, it is unclear how much financial compensation he’s seeking for the ordeal.

Daniel Johns is a fully fledged adult, and if he wants to go to a brothel, that’s his choice. But this story wasn’t even fact checked with him, or any member of his management team, which is wildly unfair.

The article in question is no longer online, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether Johns’ case holds up in court.

As a passionate Novocastrian, I will forever love Daniel Johns and I truly hope he is doing well and seeks the compensation the courts see fitting for this entire ordeal. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go listen to Straight Lines on repeat and replace this allegedly false Daniel Johns story in my brain with a nicer memory of him in his prime.

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