NME magazine has issued a formal apology to Morrissey after running an interview with the former Smiths frontman in 2007 which he claimed was edited in a way to make him look racist.
Last October, the High Court ruled libel proceedings against the NME’s former editor Conor McNicholas and the magazine’s publisher IPC Media could go ahead, but Morrissey later suggested an apology from the publication would be enough for him to drop the threat of legal action.
And now NME and IPC have released a statement apologising to the singer, while also insisting it was never their intention to twist the article in a negative fashion.
“In December 2007, we published an article entitled ‘Morrissey: Big mouth strikes again’,” the joint statement reads. “Following this, Morrissey began proceedings for libel against us. His complaint is that we accused him of being a racist off the back of an interview which he gave to the magazine. He believes the article was edited in such a way that made him seem reactionary.”
“We wish to make clear that we do not believe that he is a racist; we didn’t think we were saying he was and we apologise to Morrissey if he or anyone else misunderstood our piece in that way. We never set out to upset Morrissey and we hope we can both get back to doing what we do best.”
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