February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The pride of West Glamorgan says that her heavily hyped $1.8 million reception at New York’s Plaza Hotel was supposed to be an intimate family affair. Of course, the star couple sold exclusive photo rights to the November 2000 affair to “Hello’s” arch rival, “OK!” for $1.5 million, but we’re sure that’s only because it’s so hard to find a good photographer around the holidays.
Anyway, “Hello!” sent in some undercover paparazzi and quicker than you can say “Cheese!” they had their own (unauthorized) exclusives. When she heard that the magazine planned to publish the pictures, Catherine got very, very mad.
“Our peace and happiness evaporated,” she told the High Court Judge presiding over the London trial.
“I felt violated,” she said. “[As though] something precious had been stolen from me.”
We’re not sure about the violated bit — after all, when you’re selling your intimate moments for public consumption, it’s hard to demonstrate convincing moral outrage — but the precious part is right on the money, so to speak. We hear that the deal with “OK!” put the onus on the Douglases to make sure that no one else had access. So the unauthorized snaps probably endangered (or voided) their original deal.