Laurence Fox’s libel claim over racism accusations to go to retrial

Laurence Fox’s libel claim after he was called a racist on social media will go to a retrial, the court of appeal has ruled. The former actor was successfully sued by Simon Blake, who is now the chief executive of Stonewall, and the drag artist Crystal over a row on the social media platform Twitter, now called X. Fox, 47, called Blake and the former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant, whose real name is Colin Seymour, “paedophiles” in an exchange about a decision by Sainsbury’s to mark Black History Month in October 2020. Fox called for a boycott of the supermarket and was called “a racist” by the men, as well as by the broadcaster Nicola Thorp, before he responded with the “paedophile” tweets which led to the initial libel claims. In two judgments in 2024, Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled in favour of Blake and Seymour, and said Fox should pay them £90,000 each in damages. The judge dismissed Fox’s counter-claims against them and Thorp for libel over tweets accusing him of racism. Fox challenged this decision at the court of appeal in London, where his lawyers described the previous judge’s decision as “plainly wrong”. In a decision on Friday, Lord Justice Dingemans, Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing and Lord Justice Warby ruled in Fox’s favour on his counter-claims and the level of damages. Warby said the tweets describing Fox as a racist caused serious harm to his reputation and his libel claim should be reconsidered at a retrial. He also reduced the amount of damages Fox was ordered to pay to Blake and Seymour to £45,000, with Dingemans describing the previous sums as “manifestly excessive”. The court of appeal judges dismissed Fox’s attempt to overturn the finding that he had libelled Blake and Seymour. After the decision, Fox complained about being “cancelled”, adding: “We don’t want to live in a country where conversations and careers are destroyed and shut down by that most appalling of slurs.” In a video posted on X, he said: “I hope now, in fact I know now, that people will think twice before making that horrible allegation again. “I was cancelled entirely from the job I love, and I still love and I hope to do again, overnight, so I am so grateful for this outcome and I hope it plays a part in putting free speech exactly back where it belongs, at the cornerstone of any free society.”