David Bar Katz, playwright and friend of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, has reached a settlement with the National Enquirer over its false story that Katz and Hoffman were lovers. The Enquirer has agreed to issue a public apology in today’s New York Times.
Earlier this month, Katz filed a lawsuit against the Enquirer over a story that featured a fake interview with Katz. In it, this “Katz” claimed that Hoffman and Katz were gay lovers and that he saw Hoffman take drugs. He even saw Hoffman do cocaine the night before his death.
But Katz said the whole thing was fabricated. The New York Times reported that the Enquirer did take the story off its site and did apologize. The settlement included the Enquirer giving Katz’s lawyer, Judd Burstein, contact information for the person that supplied them with the quotes.
In addition, the Enquirer will provide the funds for a $45,000 prize for an unproduced play through Katz’s American Playwriting Foundation.
Katz has spoken out about Hoffman in an interview with CNN, telling New Day that Hoffman was not in the middle of a self-destructive spiral.
“I can just say that I think a lot of it has been totally overblown,” Katz said. “It gives a false picture of him because he was focused, he was working, he was focused on his family, he was not a partier, he was not someone that was in a spiral, he was not self-destructive in any way.”
Katz was the friend who found Hoffman dead on Feb. 2. Hoffman, who won an Oscar for 2005’s Capote, was just 46.
He told CNN that he was “stunned” by the Enquirer report. “I always knew they made stuff up, but I never knew they made up even having an interview with someone that they never had, and then the degree of seeing how everyone picks it up and, as you just said, treats it like news,” Katz said.
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