Columnist “regrets” Gately article

Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir has said she regrets “any affront” caused by her widely-criticised article about Stephen Gately’s death.

Jan Moir has said she regrets her recent Daily Mail column on Stephen Gately, but maintained some aspects of the Boyzone star's death were "sleazy". The Press Complaints Commission received over 21,000 complaints about Moir's article which described Gately's death "strange, lonely and troubling".

"I regret any affront caused. What I meant by 'nothing natural' was that the natural duration of his life had been tragically shortened in a way that was shocking and out of the ordinary," Moir wrote in follow up piece in the Daily Mail. "Absolutely none of this had anything to do with his sexuality. If he had been a heterosexual member of a boy band, I would have written exactly the same article."

The PCC have confirmed Moir's column had received the most complaints ever made about a single newspaper article, more than 25,000. However, the writer called the furore over her comments a "hysterical over-reaction" and "an orchestrated campaign".

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