UPDATE: NME and Morrissey have now reached a settlement – see below for full details.
NME have apologised to Morrissey over the controversial 2007 article in which he claims they said he was a racist. The statement, which went online earlier, reads as follows: "In December 2007, we published an article entitled ‘Morrissey: Big mouth strikes again’. Following this, Morrissey began proceedings for libel against us. His complaint is that we accused him of being a racist off the back of an interview which he gave to the magazine. He believes the article was edited in such a way that made him seem reactionary.
"We wish to make clear that we do not believe that he is a racist; we didn’t think we were saying he was and we apologise to Morrissey if he or anyone else misunderstood our piece in that way. We never set out to upset Morrissey and we hope we can both get back to doing what we do best."
Morrissey had previously rejected the offer of an apology from IPC, issuing a statement saying that "The NME recently offered to apologize to Morrissey by offering space on nme.com, but not within the printed magazine. This offer was rejected as disproportionate to the damage done to Morrissey by the NME magazine itself."
UPDATE: Music Week reports that, in the wake of the magazine’s apology, NME and Morrissey have reached a statement out of court. An NME spokesman’s statement reads as follows: "“NME is pleased that it has buried the hatchet with Morrissey in respect of the libel case he brought against us in 2007.”
“Morrissey sued over an article based on interviews with him which he believed accused him of racism.
“After an on-going dialogue with Morrissey and his representatives, NME today publishes a clarification in the magazine and online which makes it clear that we do not believe we ever called Morrissey a racist and nor do we believe he is.
“We have said sorry to Morrissey for any misunderstanding that may have arisen.
“The settlement with Morrissey does not involve payment of any damages or legal costs (other than a small sum of costs which the court ordered NME to pay last year when we applied unsuccessfully to have the case struck out on grounds of delay).”
So that, as they say, appears to be that.
