Catherine Zeta Jones didn't like grainy snaps of her being fed wedding cake by her husband, a court heard this week. Róisín Ingle scoffs at such vanity
Back when Catherine Zeta-Jones was just a darling bud of May and before she became the darling of Hollywood's Michael Douglas, it's likely the Welsh movie star would have been extremely grateful for any coverage afforded her by celebrity magazines. When she was dating the likes of TV presenter John Leslie or ginger-haired popstar Mick Hucknall, former acquaintances say she would have yelled OK! to the kind of publicity that made her lips quiver in court this week when recounting the manner in which she was "violated" by unwanted paparazzi at her wedding.
Hello!? Can a bride really be "violated" by the publication of a fuzzy snap of her being fed wedding cake by her new husband? Apparently, it was all about the distance of the cutlery from her mouth.
"I don't like to see photos of my husband shoving a spoon down my throat," she sniffed in a packed London courtroom.
Those who have been taking a break from the bizarre lives of celebrities since the mind-boggling Michael Jackson interview may not be aware of the courtroom drama being played out in London. The saga began when zeta-jones (33) and Douglas (59) decided to have an elegant private wedding in the Plaza Hotel in New York in October, 2000. Private, that is, but for the professional photographs being taken by celebrity bible OK!, to be syndicated in no less than 21 countries. It was a cunning coup over their arch rivals Hello! for which they paid the couple £1 million.
Incensed at losing out to the competition, Hello! managed to smuggle a couple of photographers into the high security celebration. The resulting grainy photographs were meant as a "spoiler" to the lavish and authorised OK! spread. One of them, the offending wedding cake snap, even appeared in the Sun under the ingenious headline: "Catherine Eater Jones". Her anger at this lighthearted headline sent out the clear message that being spotted anywhere near a dessert at your reception is this season's nuptial no-no.
The seven-months-pregnant actress and her husband were the star attraction in court this week where they emerged dressed in black from a black limousine, casting black looks at the assembled paparazzi. For one day only, the couple attended the hearing to try to convince the judge that because they did not get to control the release of a couple of dodgy wedding snaps they deserved £500,000 in damages. OK!, meanwhile, is suing the publishers of Hello! for £1.75 million.
As the pesky prosecution insisted on pointing out, the case appears to be more about the control of the couple's image and less about the emotional distress caused by a few unflattering and sneaky snapshots.
Still, Zeta-Jones made a convincing enough job of her claim that the days following the "magical" wedding were "destroyed" by news that an uninvited guest had managed to take a few bland photos of their big day. She was particularly upset that one of the pictures made her look "large", saying a harsh reality of the movie industry is that she must preserve her image at all costs, "particularly as a woman". The distress of the events, she claimed, continued to this day.
"It's not about control," she said. "It's about recognising that just because I'm in the public eye it doesn't negate the fact that I can't let my hair down."
"We felt as if our home had been ransacked and everything taken out of it and spread in the street," said her husband of the snatched snaps, raising the eyebrows of everyone who has ever actually had their home broken into.
Apart from the thrill that celebrity watchers got this week from seeing one of the most powerful couples in Hollywood reveal titbits such as the fact that to Zeta-Jones £1 million is small change and she detests going to the gym, there is a serious legal point at issue. Should the couple win, the way in which the British media can document the comings and goings of celebrities will be open to far more intense legal scrutiny. Judgment in favour of Zeta-Jones and Douglas will effectively mean the right of privacy, as contained in the Human Rights Act which was incorporated into English law at almost the same time as their wedding, will be set in stone. Should they lose, it will be a victory for the media coming, as it does, in the wake of the Naomi Campbell case. Last year, the court of appeal in London ruled that the supermodel who was photographed at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting could not expect privacy as she had publicly lied about her drug use.
Offering light relief from the relentless beating of war drums, the case was seized on last week as an example of how power, fame and money has caused a nice young girl from Swansea to lose her head. But the verdict of Mr Justice Lindsay is all that matters to the couple.
"A wedding is an intimate occasion, but when they have 350 guests, with cameras recording the event, one cannot possibly characterise that as private," he said this week.