Back to the Mail On Sunday, and the Sunday paper has done a deal with Madonna too, though this one isn't about any new fangled covermount promotion. Rather the newspaper has settled its dispute with Madge in relation to those photos of her wedding to Guy Ritchie which it published last October.
As previously reported, the MoS published the photos of Madonna and Guy's 2000 wedding last Autumn, after the couple had divorced. At the time of their marriage the pop star and her film director other half went to great lengths to keep the ceremony out of the public eye. The photos the MoS published were the couple's private shots, which had been sneakily copied in 2003 by an interior designer who was working at the couple's home.
Madonna sued, accusing the paper of breaching the couple's privacy and infringing their copyrights. Her legal rep stressed the lengths the couple had gone to in order to keep the wedding private, the dodgy circumstances that had led to the paper acquiring the photos, and the fact the tabloid waited until the couple were in the news as a result of their divorce before printing them. All in all, the Mail didn't really have much of a case for defending themselves.
Which is presumably why they settled yesterday. The settlement was confirmed in the High Court, without Madonna herself being present. The damages payment the Mail will pay was not disclosed but is said to be "substantial". She will donate the cash to her Raising Malawi charity.