Moir sorry for Gately piece but defends the ‘S’ word

The Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir, whose article about the death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately prompted a record 25,000 calls to the press Press Complaints Commission, has publicly apologised for the timing of her column, published on the eve of his funeral. However, Moir also defends her piece, in which she wrote that there had been "nothing natural" about Gately's death and that the circumstances were "more than a little sleazy".

Writing for the Mail today under the headline 'The truth about my views on the tragic death of Stephen Gately', Moir says she was horrified when her article was widely condemned as "homophobic" and "hateful". She adds: "Obviously, a great deal of offence has been taken and I regret any affront caused. This was never my intention."

Moir apologises to Gately's family for the "insensitive timing of the column, published so close to the funeral". However, she also says that readers were wrong to suggest that the motive behind the column was to insinuate that Gately died "because he was gay... Anyone who knows me will vouch that I have never held such poisonous views."

She insists that she is the victim of an "orchestrated campaign" but says she has also received thousands of supportive emails.

Moir defends her use of the word "sleazy" to describe the circumstances in which Gately died, after he and his civil partner Andrew Cowles (above, with Gately) went to a nightclub and brought back a Bulgarian man to their Majorca holiday flat. "I still maintain that to die on a sofa while your partner is sleeping with someone else in the next room is, indeed, sleazy, no matter who you are or what your sexual orientation might be."

Moir, who claims she is a supporter of same-sex marriages, claims that her assertion that there was "nothing natural" about Gately's death has been "wildly misinterpreted". She writes today: "What I meant by 'nothing natural' was that the natural duration of his life had been tragically shortened in a way that was shocking and out of the ordinary. Certainly, his death was unusual enough for a coroner to become involved."

Moir finishes her column by calling Gately, 33, a "talented young man who died before his time". Yet in her column last week she called Gately "the Posh Spice of Boyzone, a popular but largely decorous addition" adding that he "could barely carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk".

Stephen Fry, who used Twitter to urge the public to complain to the PCC last weekend, later predicted that Moir would "write the inevitable Vulnerable Frightened Piece in which she tells the world just how tyrannised, terrorised and victimised she felt; piling on the image of the concerned mum (if she is one) who was just trying to ask questions." 

Moir's column today has attracted few supportive comments on online. One reads: "25,000 people have complained about what you wrote. A period of silence is called for. Instead, you come out and defend what you wrote, apologising for its timing. You just don't get it do you?" ·