Daniel Johns gets a $470k payout from News Corp following defamation lawsuit

Last week we reported that The Sunday Telegraph had issued an apology to Daniel Johns after falsely claiming the musician frequented Sydney brothel, The Kastle, in a 2019 article. It has now been revealed that the Telegraph’s publisher News Corp has paid Johns a $470,000 settlement.

The figure combines a $170,000 payout along with approximately $300k to cover Johns’ legal fees. The case dates back to August 2019 when the Telegraph ran a front-page story with the headline “King Of The Kastle”. The Amy Harris article showed a dishevelled Johns next to the caption “rocker Daniel Johns swaggers out of a notorious bondage dungeon after a two-week bender”.

Johns immediately denied the allegations, describing them as “simply untrue,” and “hurtful, humiliating, and damaging to me and my family”. The Kastle’s proprietor gave credence to Johns’ denial. “We state that Daniel Johns was not on the premises nor has been previously,” Mistress Scarlett tweeted.

Johns pushed forward with legal proceedings, which culminated in an official apology from the paper last week. “On August 11, 2019, The Sunday Telegraph’s front page contained a photograph of musician Daniel Johns and alleged that he was swaggering out of notorious Sydney brothel, The Kastle,” the Telegraph‘s representative wrote.

“The story was wrong. Mr Johns was not leaving the brothel and The Sunday Telegraph accepts he has never been there at any other time. We retract the story and we wish to extend a genuine and public apology to Mr Johns and his family for the error and the harm caused.”

The Sydney Morning Herald broke the news on Saturday that, along with the apology, Johns received nearly half a million dollars in compensation. Johns has declined to comment following the case’s resolution.