Musician Daniel Johns receives six-figure settlement from News Corp

Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns has received almost half a million dollars in a settlement with News Corp.

Johns received $170,000 in addition to having his legal costs of up to $300,000 covered by the media company, which also published an extraordinary apology to the musician last Sunday.

Daniel Johns, former frontman of Silverchair, received an apology from The Sunday Telegraph. Credit: Jordan Munns

Johns, who declined to comment further this week, sued News Corp over an article published in The Sunday Telegraph in August last year that claimed he had been at a Sydney brothel. Johns described the story as "simply untrue" and "hurtful, humiliating, and damaging to me and my family".

He strenuously denied ever being at or having any knowledge of the Chippendale brothel trading as The Kastle, which also incorporates a bondage and discipline venue, the various services of which were catalogued in great detail via the newspaper under the headline "King Of The Kastle: Rocker Daniel Johns swaggers out of a notorious bondage dungeon after a two-week bender".

The Kastle's owner, known as Mistress Scarlett, backed Johns and publicly refuted The Sunday Telegraph report, taking to Twitter to denounce the story which ran on the paper's front page and featured photos taken of Johns within the vicinity of the establishment.

Within days of the story by journalist Amy Harris being published, it had been removed from the newspaper's website. Johns initiated defamation proceedings in the Victorian Supreme Court, which resulted in a protracted battle with News Corp's lawyers over nearly nine months.

Last weekend's edition of The Sunday Telegraph ran a lengthy apology to Johns on page 3. Other News Corp mastheads that had published the original story also apologised. The retraction says: "The story was wrong. Mr Johns was not leaving the brothel and The Sunday Telegraph accepts he has never been there at any other time. Mr Johns was in the area because he had been visiting a friend who lived in the vicinity of The Kastle.

"We retract the story and we wish to extend a genuine and public apology to Mr Johns and his family for the error and the harm caused."

Johns also managed to have an impressive checklist of all his musical achievements included: the paper described him as a "highly decorated ARIA award winner" and the creator of "multiple number one albums as well as scores of chart-topping singles".

Johns declined to provide any further comment on his settlement with News Corp or his months-long battle with the publisher.

Rather, he provided a simple footnote on his social media platforms after posting a copy of the apology, telling his followers: "Now ... back to the music".