LONDON, June 21 (UPI) -- The British tabloid Daily Star has publicly apologized and privately paid comedian Russell Brand for libeling him by wrongly linking him to a rape.
Brand sued the Daily Star for a front-page story in the Sept. 4, 2006, issue that carried the headline: "Brand in Rape Quiz -- I was drugged claims girl, 20."
A second headline above a continuation of the story inside the paper read: "I was drugged and raped in BB star Brand's flat."
Brand -- the former host of the TV show "Big Brother's Little Brother" -- said he accepted the tabloid's apology and the "substantial" but undisclosed remuneration, the London Press Gazette reported Thursday.
Brand's attorney, Paul Fox, told London's High Court the allegations in the article that Brand had drugged and raped the 20-year-old woman were "totally untrue."
"The claimant was never suspected of the alleged rape nor was there any evidence at all to involve him in its circumstances," Fox said. "Rather, at the police's request, he assisted them as a witness."
