KEY POINTS:
Former Baywatch star David Hasselhoff won substantial but undisclosed damages at the High Court at the weekend after winning a libel case against two magazines who alleged that he was "off his face" in a Los Angeles nightclub.
OK! magazine in the UK and its sister title OK! Weekly in the US reported in July that the star of American series Knight Rider and Baywatch celebrated winning a custody battle for his daughters by drinking irresponsibly in the 'Les Deux' nightclub.
On July 2nd the US magazine claimed that Hasselhoff "drank champagne like water" from midnight until 2am and "chugged down a full glass of champagne before leaving at the request of his partner".
The article also alleged the actor left the club with a 'goody bag' including a US$700 bottle of Veuve Clicquot, courtesy of the management.
The following day OK! magazine printed an amended version of the article in its American sibling, accusing him of "abusive" behaviour.
Simon Smith, Hasselhoff's lawyer, told the judge the allegations were "entirely false".
Mr Smith said the defendants "now accept that their allegations were false".
He added "Each defendant has agreed to publish an apology in their magazine and together have agreed to pay the claimant substantial damages".
A witness central to the case had seen Hasselhoff in the club but noted that he drank "a couple of Rockstar energy drinks", not alcohol.
Hasselhoff, who has confessed to alcoholism in the past, declared that he would give up alcohol as a sign of his commitment to his daughers.
In a statement read outside the court, Hasselhoff said "The very day these lies surfaced I had made a promise not only to the courts but also to my daughters that I absolutely would not drink alcohol, and I shall do my best to keep that promise".
"To say that hours later I reneged on that promise and was drunkenly abusing people in a bar was not only an outrage to me and my family but damaging professionally as well", he said.
Mr Smith added, "It was a feature of the latter part of the claimant's custody case [for his daughters] that he made known to the court that he has, and continues to, abstain from alcohol, a previous problem for him".
Mr Smith said that at no stage prior to publication did either magazine's editors put their allegations to Hasselhoff.
The actor, 55, has received mixed publicity for his performance as a judge alongside Piers Morgan, former editor of The Daily Mirror, and Sharon Osbourne in the television show America's Got Talent, produced by NBC.
Widely known as 'The Hoff', he has had considerable success in Europe as a singer, selling over nine million albums in Germany alone.
In his statement he stressed the need "for the public not to be so seriously misled as to what we [his colleagues in show business] get up to and how we behave in our private lives, which we ought to be able to enjoy without tabloid intrusion".
OK! magazine in the UK and OK! Weekly in the US are owned and published by Northern and Shell plc and Northern and Shell North America Limited, respectively.
- INDEPENDENT
