|
Imogen Thomas's reportedaffair with Ryan Giggs was the talk of Twitter and the House of Commons, where the footballer was identified despite being granted a gagging order It's a slightly tricky business asking Imogen Thomas to talk about her year. She goes quiet for a moment or two. "I am going to have to think about how I am going to word this," she says. Well, perhaps, you can just start by telling me about how it all kicked off, I say. How you came to be in the public eye this year? "This is such a difficult question. I know this is ridiculous but I have quite a lot of legal stuff going on at the moment. You can say it. But I can't." So, what I can say is that Imogen Thomas was at the centre of a super-injunction scandal when a married footballer successfully applied to the high court to prevent any details of an affair he'd allegedly had with her from being made public. And what I can also say is that after weeks of speculation on Twitter and elsewhere, the MP John Hemming used parliamentary privilege to name the footballer as Ryan Giggs in a Commons debate. Can we name the footballer? Can Imogen? When I meet her despite the fact the case had led to a quasi constitutional crisis with the power of the courts simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of injunction breakers, Thomas still can't say the words "Ryan" and "Giggs" in any sort of sentence. Though that might be about to change. Because on Thursday, she was vindicated at the High Court. The evidence that the footballer's lawyers had used against her, and to successfully petition for the injunction, convinced the judge that she may have been trying to blackmail him, for between £50-100,000. This week Mr Justice Eady was told that the footballer now accepted there was no basis for an allegation of blackmail. And the judge also raised the question whether "there is no longer any point in maintaining the anonymity". No ruling has yet to be made, but watch this space. For Thomas, it's an obvious relief. "It was frustrating for me because I never wanted to speak about what went on. And I still don't now. I never want to. It's not in my interest. But it's difficult for me, because I was being accused of things and I know the truth and I am not allowed to say it." She is, in many ways, an unlikely champion of free speech. An ex-beauty queen, a former Big Brother contestant and a glamour model, she's no stranger to publicity. But after the super-injunction was issued, the publicity was of a whole different order. "I was terrified, to be honest. When you have photographers camping outside your house every day for about five months, it takes over your life. Even though I was working in the media beforehand, when I was in Big Brother, it was just a different kind of fame. "I just wasn't used to seeing photos of myself every single day in the newspaper, and you start to hate yourself because you don't like the way you look. And there were times when I turned to alcohol and antidepressants. I just worried about what the press were going to write next." You didn't like the way you were being portrayed? "I obviously didn't like it. Nobody would like it. I wasn't being portrayed in a good light at all. What I did was wrong. But the way I was treated was horrible." There were death threats on Twitter, she says. And because she couldn't go out, she stayed home and drank. But the worst of it was that she simply couldn't defend herself. It was the accusations of blackmail that stung the most. And the fact that, until this week, she's been unable to defend herself against them. The legal case is rumbling on. "But it's a rich man's world. Having money, you can buy whatever you want. You can buy your privacy. If I had a choice and they told me it would cost £50,000 to keep your name out of the paper, I wouldn't have been able to afford it. I didn't have that kind of money. But because someone has money, they can do that. I just think it is ridiculous. The whole thing is a farce. I just think it should be equal for everyone." Still, on the plus side, "I've had quite a lot of work from it. And, to be honest, when my name was first out there I thought I'd never work again." She recently appeared on the cover of Nuts naked apart from some strategic strips of gaffer tape. "And I would just really like to start a family now. Everyone thinks I'm just this girl who craved attention, a reality star. But I went to university. I've got a good degree." There's one thing she's sure about though. "I will never have an affair again. Absolutely not. What I did was wrong. But there are only so many times you can say sorry." Carole Cadwalladr
guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds {loadposition user38} source:
source: |
