Laurence Fox has been ordered to pay £180,000 ($220,000) in damages to a former RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star and charity trustee he called “paedophiles” on social media.
The former GB News host lost his libel case against Crystal, whose real name is Colin Seymour, and Simon Blake, a trustee of UK charity Stonewall, several months ago.
According to PA, he has been ordered to pay £180,000 in damages, split evenly between Crystal and Blake.
“By calling Mr Blake and Mr Seymour paedophiles, Mr Fox subjected them to a wholly undeserved public ordeal,” the judge was reported to have said by PA. “It was a gross, groundless and indefensible libel, with distressing and harmful real-world consequences for them.”
Both Crystal and Blake have previously said they faced abuse after the former Lewis star’s tweet and posted on X after the trial that “a huge weight” had been lifted. Crystal competed in the first season of Drag Race in the UK.
Fox, who left GB News last year after making highly misogynistic remarks about a female journalist, had counter-sued the pair over tweets accusing him of racism, but the judge did not make a ruling on whether this was “substantially true.” Fox had vowed to appeal that ruling.
The post Laurence Fox Ordered To Pay $220,000 To Former ‘Drag Race’ UK Star & Charity Trustee He Called “Paedophiles” On Social Media appeared first on Deadline.
