Elton John testified via video in a U.K. court on Friday about a British newspaper’s “abhorrent” “invasion” of his and his family’s privacy.
Elton and his husband, David Furnish, are among several notable people, including Prince Harry and Elizabeth Hurley, who are suing The Daily Mail for writing articles about them based on “unlawful information gathering.” The newspaper’s publisher has denied any wrongdoing.
Specifically, Elton and David have identified 10 articles written about them between 2000 and 2015 that feature information they claim was obtained by tapping their phones, hiring private investigators and illegally obtaining medical records.
Elton wrote in his witness statement, “From a personal level, I have found The Mail’s deliberate invasion into my medical health and medical details surrounding the birth of our son Zachary abhorrent and outside even the most basic standards of human decency.”
Elton went on to write, “David and I have now seen documents proving that The Mail were digging into me during times when I was in hospital and because I was in hospital. We have also seen documents proving their intense digging into and around the birth of our first son Zachary.”
“We do not believe there could be any legitimate ways that they discovered details about our egg donor, embryos and questions of paternity. Those were among the most confidential matters in our lives at the time,” he added in the statement.
Elton wrote, “It has been truly sickening for David and me to see the disclosure in our case, with Zachary as a target when he was just born, with David and me as targets, with me as a target when I was sick and unwell.”
According to the U.K. paper The Independent, the trial is due to conclude in March.
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