The tabloid boasted in a now-deleted article that they found White and promised to reveal her ‘secret new life’
The Daily Mail newspaper secretly tailed and photographed a woman in Detroit and then published an article and photographs falsely accusing her of being former The White Stripes drummer Meg White, even after she told the newspaper it had mistaken her identity, multiple sources have told the Guardian.
The rightwing British tabloid quietly removed the article and photographs, first published on 6 August, from its website last week. The Mail did not issue a correction or editor’s note explaining the removal.
Hailed for her inspired use of raw power and space, White was named one of the 100 greatest drummers of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. Since The White Stripes disbanded in 2011, she has lived as a reclusive private citizen in the band’s Michigan home city, eschewing all media appearances and public events.
When the highly acclaimed garage rock duo was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year, she declined to attend and instead sent a message of gratitude via former bandmate Jack White.
The Mail’s story, written by senior reporter Joe Hutchison, boasted that the paper had found the “reclusive female music megastar” and promised to reveal her “secret new life”, including what it claimed were the first public images of White in 17 years.
Instead, the Guardian has been told that the paper followed and photographed a completely different person who is a friend of White’s. The Mail published more than a dozen pictures taken of the unsuspecting woman getting out of a vehicle and socializing with two others outside a restaurant.
“Neither Meg nor the friend that was pictured had any idea they were being stalked and, if they had, they for sure would not have voluntarily chosen to be featured in anything having to do with the Daily Mail,” said a music label executive who was involved in multiple White Stripes releases, and who is close friends with both White and the friend that was photographed.
Speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity, they confirmed that the woman the Mail photographed and White were not interested in speaking to the press. “I can also assure you that Meg is well and is living the private life she chooses and deserves in Detroit,” they added.
According to its own reporting, when the Mail finally approached and accused the woman of being White, she laughed and told the paper it was mistaken.
Hutchison wrote that, despite this, the paper concluded she was White because she politely replied “thank you” after the Mail complimented The White Stripes’ music.
“That tells the reader and the journalist exactly nothing,” said Dan Axelrod, the chair of the ethics committee at the Society of Professional Journalists, whose code of ethics is one of the most widely cited in the industry. “The person being photographed could’ve been toying with the reporter or may not have heard the question properly and was saying ‘thanks’ to be politely dismissive.”
The paper offered no justification for its attempt to pursue and surreptitiously photograph someone who has lived out of the spotlight for 15 years.
“What’s so disheartening is the great lengths they took to try and hunt her down and how reckless and cruel it was to post images of another woman all over the internet,” wrote singer-songwriter Karen Elson, the ex-spouse of Jack White, in a since-deleted social media post seen by the Guardian.
Elson also stated the woman is a friend of Meg White, adding she is someone “who we also love tremendously”.
