Monday, July 18, 2016

Elton John settles sexual harassment case with British male employee

Sir Elton John has reportedly paid a former British male employee a six-figure sum to settle a sexual harassment case.

The unnamed British male was dismissed by the Rocket Man singer in mid-2015 and he launched legal action against Elton and two of his companies for unfair dismissal and sex discrimination, including allegations of sexual misconduct in August (15).

Elton reportedly paid a six-figure sum to settle the case out of court in February (16), and the employee withdrew his claim.

The singer strongly denies the allegations, but is pleased the legal proceedings have been settled, his spokesman said.

"These employment proceedings were brought after Sir Elton John's company parted ways with one of its employees in June 2015," the statement to British newspaper The Sun on Sunday reads. "The claims were always strongly denied and we continue to deny them... Sir Elton John is pleased that the former employee withdrew the claims in full and that the issue was settled in February this year."

Details of the case were made public by the newspaper on Sunday (17Jul16) after Britain's Court of Appeal lifted reporting restrictions following numerous attempts by the singer to keep the case secret since December (15) through a series of appeals.

The settlement took place just a month before the singer was hit with separate sexual harassment allegations from former security guard Jeffrey Wenninger.

He filed a lawsuit in March (16) claiming he was groped by the 69-year-old while he was employed in 2014, but Elton's lawyer Orin Snyder issued a statement denying the claims.

"This baseless lawsuit is brought by a disgruntled former security officer seeking to extract an undeserved payment," he told Digitalspy.com at the time. "These claims are patently untrue and contradicted by numerous previous statements made by this plaintiff. We will not give into his latest abuse of the legal system."