Justice

Elton John Loses Suit

Judge tells singer, 'It’s satire, silly.'

In a victory for "irony," "teasing," and journalism in general, a British judge ruled yesterday that a satirical column about Elton John in The Guardian didn't amount to libel. Published in July, the column was a spoofed entry from the Rocket Man’s diary about his White Tie and Tiara ball, which raises money for the Elton John AIDS Foundation. The glittery singer took offense at an implication in the cod piece that he threw the event "as an occasion for meeting celebrities and/or self-promotion," according to his lawyers, and argued that the writer had acted maliciously. The judge disagreed. He said the article was clearly "an attempt at humor" and that any reader would have known that it wasn't actually written by the Candle in the Wind singer. Anyway, "the transparently false attribution is irony," the judge said, and "irony is not always a form of sarcasm or ridicule."