Gayle wins masseuse defamation payout
WEST Indies cricket star Chris Gayle on Mond a y won a A $ 3 0 0 , 0 0 0 ($221,000) payout from an Australian med ia g roup wh ich cla i med he ex posed his gen ita ls to a massage t herapist.
The a l l-rou nder was accused by Fa i r f a x Med i a , publ i s her of T he Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, in a series of stories in the newspapers in 2016.
They alleged he exposed his penis and indecently propositioned the woman in a dressing room at the 2015 World Cup in Sydney.
Gayle strenuously denied t he a llegations, claiming at t he time t hat t he journa lists behind the stor y wanted to “destroy him”.
His teammate Dwayne Smith, who was in the changing room at the time, also denied the incident took place.
He won his defamation case in October last year, with jurors finding Fairfax was motivated by malice and had failed to establish a defence of truth.
New South Wales Supreme Court Justice Lucy McCallum said in awarding the payout that being accused of such conduct was “very damaging to Mr Gayle’s reputation”, according to a report in Fairfax newspapers.
She said Gayle’s evidence of his hurt feelings was “surprisingly compelling”.
Fairfax said it planned to lodge an immediate appeal.
The publication of the stories followed an uproar after Gayle attempted to flirt with an Australian presenter on live TV, asking her out for a drink and telling her: “Don’t blush, baby.”
After winning the court case, Gayle tried to spark a bidding war for a tell-all interview on the case, promising that “when I break this down to y’all it will be like a movie”.
“Biding [sic] sta rts at $ 300K for t his inter v iew! So much to say & I will ! ” he t weeted to h i s t hen 3.75 mi l l ion followers.
There were no takers.