A woman in Detroit was stalked and wrongly identified as former The White Stripes drummer Meg White, who has largely stayed out of the public eye in recent years, according to The Guardian.
The Daily Mail secretly followed and photographed the woman before publishing an article and photographs falsely accusing her of being Meg White. This happened even after she informed the outlet it had mistaken her identity.
The rightwing British tabloid quietly removed the article and photographs, first published on August 6, from its website last week. The Mail did not issue a correction or editor’s note explaining the removal, offering no acknowledgment of wrongdoing despite the significance of the error.
The Mail’s now-deleted story had boasted that it tracked Meg White down in Detroit, where she grew up, and promised readers a look at her “secret new life.” The piece was framed as capturing the musician’s first public images in 17 years. This claim made the eventual retraction all the more striking, given how aggressively the story had been promoted.
In reality, the woman photographed and named in the piece was not Meg White at all, but rather a friend of hers. That distinction did nothing to stop the tabloid from running the false identification alongside surveillance-style photographs.
The Mail’s handling of the situation echoes a pattern of the publication facing scrutiny over factual errors involving private individuals. Earlier this year, a Derbyshire woman won a legally agreed clarification and payout from the Mail. The Mail had published a story falsely linking her to drug use at children’s house parties, and the case took nearly a year to resolve.
The Daily Mail’s now-deleted article had read, “Mysterious mansion covered in spiders and skeletons is talk of ritzy suburb. Now its owner is revealed as reclusive female music megastar pictured for first time in 17 YEARS… see her secret new life.”
The Daily Mail has not publicly commented on the removal or the circumstances surrounding the story. Further developments may follow.
