In the wake of the hacking scandal, the public perception is that most celebrity scoops are picked up by dodgy journalists, tapping into private voicemails, rifling through bins, taking sneaky photos behind bushes. And whilst the courtroom antics of the phone hacking scandal have shown a lot of that to be true, some scoops actually come from people close to the celebrities. Jude Law learned this the hard way yesterday when at the Old Bailey's hacking trial.
Sitting in court, looking dapper in a thick tweed grey suit and a blue and white tie, Jude was there to claim that he must have had his phone hacked by the now-closed News Of The World. He told the court that the media had 'an unhealthy amount of information' about his life.
[ASSETHERE=image]
Despite having the option to settle the trial out of court, which would mean little private information coming to light (this is what ex Sienna Miller did, getting £100,000 and saving a whole lot of that pretty face) he decided to testify. Which meant Jude was subjected to a few embarrassing moments:
1. He had to talk about how gutted he was when those allegations Sienna had cheated on him came out
The main topic on the agenda was the NOTW's 2005 front-page revelation that then-girlfriend Sienna Miller had cheated on him with her Layer Cake co-star, Daniel Craig (better known as Bond, James Bond, to you). Jude had to confess that he called up Daniel Craig to have a go at him when the story came to light.
2. He got that nasty shock
Despite having prepared for the trial - not only did he turn up in that lovely suit, but he was first approached by Scotland Yard about the hacking trial in 2011 - he wasn't quite ready to discover that a member of his 'immediate family' had sold stories on him. When asked by the prosecution when he had learned that a family member had accepted money in return for information given to the paper, he replied 'today'.
The identity of the family member was not revealed to the courtroom, but, unusually, the name was written down on a piece of paper, folded up, then and handed to Jude in the witness stand. According to The Independent, Jude displayed 'no specific reaction' to the note. Well, he is a two-time Oscar nominated actor, after all.
3. That courtroom sketch
According to the courtroom sketches, Jude Law is a skinny, ginger Peter Pan-a-like one moment, Liam from One Direction the next.
Ah, phone hacking eh? Bringing out all the ghosts of celeb news past.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
Pictures: Getty, PA
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.