Douglas says Hello! pics 'gut-wrenching'

Michael Douglas today described the discovery that photographs of his wedding to Catherine Zeta Jones were to appear in Hello! magazine as a “truly gut-wrenching” experience.

The 58-year-old star said he and his wife were “devastated and shocked” when they received the news which left them both deeply upset.

In a 12-page written statement prepared for the couple’s High Court action against the magazine, Mr Douglas said: “The days following our wedding which should have been one of the most magical times of our lives were suddenly turned into an exhausting nightmare of lawyers and injunctions.”

Describing the day itself, he said: “The wedding was a great success. I believe that all of our guests had a wonderful time and the atmosphere was tremendously warm and family orientated.

“We could not have asked for a more wonderful wedding. However, on Monday morning we woke up to a complete nightmare.”

He said he felt “betrayed” when Hello! published the unauthorised wedding photographs.

“We believed that Hello! was exacting revenge on us because we had decided to provide the rights to publish photographs of our wedding to their competitor, OK!”

He said: “I share Catherine’s view of the Hello! photographs. They were seedy and voyeuristic ... They demean the occasion and they show intimate moments that we would not have chosen to publish to the world.”

Mr Douglas also accuses the Hello! coverage of being “spiteful” because it included photographs of him and his first wife, Diandra, next to photographs of him and Catherine.

“It was a clear attempt to deprive us of the joy and love of a magical and wonderful event. Frankly it was disgusting.”

In his statement, describing himself as a film actor and film producer, Mr Douglas says: “My father, Kirk Douglas, became a well-known film star shortly after I was born.

“I therefore experienced the glare of the media from an early age. I was acutely conscious of the effect of celebrity on one’s private life.”

Press attention increased considerably, he said, when his relationship with Ms Zeta Jones became public knowledge.

“This was something for which I was unprepared. Catherine is a film star, of course, in her own right but it was not simply a question of one plus one equalling two – it seemed to equal five in terms of increased press attention for both of us.”

He said he valued his personal privacy and always tried to protect it, believing he has the right to make the choice as to where in his life the dividing line between the public and the personal should be drawn.

“Just because I am an actor in the public eye does not mean that I have forfeited my right to a private life.”

The security arrangements at his wedding, including the prohibition on cameras, were “implemented to protect our privacy and that of our guests and to protect the intimacy, beauty and the joy of our wedding”.

He described how he and his wife have been forced to take a number of “proactive steps to protect our family from intrusion, including shredding correspondence before putting it in the garbage, having our home regularly screened for possible bugging devices and, after Dylan was born, taking steps to prevent people scanning the airwaves to listen to our baby monitors”.