A London judge has granted rapper-turned-actor Will Smith an unspecified amount of damages in a lawsuit against entertainment news agency World Entertainment News Network (WENN).
The suit was brought about shortly after a story printed by WENN in which they claimed Smith had touted the infamous German dictator Adolf Hitler as a “good person.” In actuality, Smith’s comments read verbatim as follows:
“Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’ I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good.'”
Although WENN later printed a retraction, Smith’s attorney Rachel Atkins contended that the retraction could not reverse the damage done to Smith’s reputation as hundreds of media outlets reprinted or otherwise quoted the original story published by WENN.
Judge David Eady ruled in favor of Smith in that WENN had “wholly misrepresented” Smith’s statements thus resulting in “acute embarrassment”. Atkins stated that the money awarded by the court will be donated to charity and to cover the legal costs of the lawsuit.
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