Apology To Eva Longoria And Tony Parker Over Affair Claim
April 7th, 2008
Paparazzi and gossip website X17 Online has issued a formal apology over ten articles that they ran in December last year accusing Eva Longoria’s husband, Tony Parker, of having an affair.
The stories that ran on the website – and were subsequently reproduced on several other gossip blogs online – claimed that French model, Alexandra Paressant, had a two-month fling with Parker, after meeting him during his wedding to Longoria.
Parker had lodged a lawsuit against X17 for US$40 million for defamation and invasion of privacy, saying, "This is false. It never happened. And X17 had to know that the story was false, or, at the very least, it had to have entertained serious doubts about the credibility of its suposed source."
On Friday (April 4) X17 Online admitted that they got it wrong and posted the following message on it’]s website:
"In December 2007, X17online.com published over ten articles concerning Tony Parker and a woman named Alexandra Paressant. Various of the articles asserted that, after Mr. Parker was introduced to Ms. Paressant by Thierry Henry at this wedding to Eva Longoria, Mr. Parker engaged in sexual relations with Ms. Paressant. Since the publication of these articles, X17online.com and X17, Inc. have discovered that Mr. Parker has never met with, or spoken to, Ms. Paressant nor has he ever had sexual relations with her. X17online.com and X17, Inc. regret having been misled by Ms. Paressant and her representatives and apologize to Mr. Parker for any damage or inconvenience this may have caused him or his wife."
TMZ.com labelled the apology the "Greatest Understatement Ever."
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Photo courtesy of NBC. Taken by Andrew Southam.
