Actor Geoffrey Rush wins defamation case against The Daily Telegraph after the publication wrongly portrayed him as a pervert and sexual predator
Geoffrey Rush has won his defamation case against a Sydney newspaper publisher and journalist over articles saying he’d been accused of inappropriate behaviour.
The 67-year-old actor had sued the Daily Telegraph’s publisher and journalist Jonathon Moran over two stories and a poster published in late 2017.
In Sydney’s Federal Court on Thursday, Justice Michael Wigney found Rush had been defamed.
‘Nationwide News and Mr Moran did not make out their truth defence,’ the judge said.
Geoffrey Rush (pictured) has won his defamation case against a Sydney newspaper publisher and journalist over articles saying he’d been accused of inappropriate behaviour
The Telegraph articles related to an allegation Rush behaved inappropriately toward a co-star – later revealed to be Eryn Jean Norvill – during a Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear in 2015-16.
Rush denied the allegation and says Nationwide News and Moran made him out to be a pervert and sexual predator.
Nationwide News denied conveying those imputations but if found to have done so, argued they’re substantially true after Norvill – who didn’t participate in the articles – agreed to testify at least year’s trial.
She told the court Rush deliberately stroked the side of her breast while her character was dead onstage.
Other allegations included that he touched Norvill’s lower back backstage, made groping gestures toward her during rehearsal and would sometimes growl and call her yummy.
Rush said it was possible he used the word yummy – which had ‘a spirit to it’ – but otherwise denied the claims, saying that he thought he and Norvill had enjoyed a ‘very sparky, congenial rapport’.
He said it was devastating and he felt sick to his stomach when he saw the Telegraph’s first front-page article about the allegation of inappropriate behaviour.
Rush (pictured) said it was devastating and he felt sick to his stomach when he saw the Telegraph’s first front-page article about the allegation of inappropriate behaviour