Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush won a major judgment that could eventually be worth millions against an Australian newspaper.
In 2017, at the height of the #MeToo moral panic, Australia’s Daily Telegraph published two articles accusing Rush of various #MeToo crimes against rising Australian stage actress Eryn Jean Norvill. She played Cordelia in a production of the Sydney Theatre Company’s 2015 production of King Lear, which starred Rush.
The Sydney tabloid daily described Rush as a “pervert” and “sexual predator” towards Norvill.
Rush immediately denied the charges and filed suit against the paper and its reporter, Jonathon Moran, for defamation and damages. According to Rush’s lawyer, the story devastated the married actor’s career. “He may never work again,” he told the media.
In his scathing judgment, Judge Michael Wigney came out swinging against the newspaper, Moran, and Norvill. After admitting she was an “intelligent, articulate and confident witness who was endeavouring to give an honest recollection,” he wrote of Norvill that: [emphasis added throughout]
Of the newspaper, the judge wrote:
Norvill claimed she had witnesses who would confirm Rush’s misdeeds, but those witnesses not only failed to corroborate her allegations, they contradicted them. Norvill was the newspaper’s key witness during the trial.
Wigney initially awarded Rush A$850,000 (about US$600,000) in damages and said the actor is entitled to more. That amount, which will likely be based on lost wages and reputational damage, will be decided at a later date.
Rush’s suit is for $25 million.
Naturally, the hideous and corrupt media are not horrified over what happened to Rush, are not writing cautionary tales about how awful it is that one of their own smeared a 67-year-old man’s world reputation. Nope, the media are only worried about how these lawsuits make it harder for them to do this to other people:
Well, in a sane world it would be more difficult to publish a story that basically annihilates an entire human being and there should be serious consequences when someone gets it wrong.
Although this victorious lawsuit against the fake news media was won in Australia, let’s hope it portends good things for Nick Sandmann, the 16-year-old boy smeared as a racist by the American media. Unlike Oscar-winner Rush, Sandmann is not a public figure and he’s a minor. Nevertheless, the American media attacked this innocent boy as a bullying bigot, even after video proved he had done nothing wrong, that he himself was the victim of a menacing American Indian activist and a group of racist black nationalists.
Sandmann is currently suing CNN and the Washington Post for around $250 million each and deserves every cent of it.
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