Harry Styles is reportedly suing The Daily Star over a fake sex pic story they ran earlier this year. Now we know why the paper just recently apologized for publishing the phony piece.You may recall the shouty headline that jumped from the newspaper's front page, reading: "1D HARRY X-RATED SEX PIC SHAME" (and the follow-up "1D HARRY FURY AT FAKED SEX PIC" for its second edition).
According to Press Gazette, Harry is reportedly suing for up to £100,000 for the May 29 story which claimed: "An explicit selfie image of Harry Styles, 20, flooded the net, sparking a flood of complaints. In the shot he poses bare-chested with one hand tugging down his black boxers and the other hand hovering provocatively over his manhood."
In the second edition of the story, the reporter wrote: "One Direction star Harry Styles was furious last night after a fake sex picture appeared on the internet," adding, "The saucy image, showing a man with tattoos posing in his pants, is definitely not the 20-year-old boyband hunk."
Harry filed a claim, which says the paper's story declared he "acted in a deeply shameful and disgraceful manner by deliberately posting online an indecent and sexually explicit photograph of himself touching his groin for all, and in particular his highly impressionable young fans, to see, thereby causing serious outrage amongst the general public for his shockingly irresponsible behavior."
The One Direction star's claim further mentions: "Given the prominence devoted to the story in such a high selling newspaper, and the sensational nature of the allegation, it was inevitable (and no doubt, intended) that it would be widely picked up and repeated across the media and internet, as in fact it was."
The Daily Star published the following apology on October 25: "We said that Harry Styles of One Direction had posted explicit photos of himself online and we published one of them. In fact the pictures had been Photoshopped and were fake. They were not posted by Harry Styles and were not pictures of him. We apologize to Harry for any embarrassment and distress our article may have caused."
Harry is suing the daily star for the fake nude photo printed of "him" RESPECT FOR HARRY #EMABiggestFans1D pic.twitter.com/Cs7PHid4Gt
- harry ✧ (@Hipstahhh_Harry) November 4, 2014