Zeta Jones and Douglas awarded £3m over Hello! pictures

HOLLYWOOD couple Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas were yesterday awarded more than three-quarters of the £4 million they spent suing Hello! magazine over their wedding photographs.

The celebrity magazine, which used unauthorised pictures of the New York wedding in 2000, must foot the couple’s massive legal bill together with the £1 million it spent on the case.

A spokesperson for the couple and OK! magazine, which paid £1 million to the couple for exclusive wedding pictures, claimed Hello! faced a total bill of £5 million.

But Christopher Hutchings, a solicitor for Hello!, said the judge who heard the case, Mr Justice Lindsay, had restricted the Douglas’ costs claim.

It meant the £1 million plus damages the couple and OK! were awarded at the High Court would be wiped out.

“Hello! obviously faces a massive bill but when these figures are finally settled, the Douglases and OK! will also be hugely out of pocket,” he said.