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Legal
Liam sues Noel
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 22 August 2011
Feuding has been a staple of the Gallagher brothers’ public relationship for almost 20 years now (and presumably their private one for much longer), but they’re still finding ways to keep it fresh. That their sibling rivalry caused the end of Oasis kept it interesting for a while, but now Liam has taken things up a gear by suing his brother for libel.
Liam is specifically taking his brother to court over recent comments Noel made about the reasons behind their band’s split in 2009. As previously reported, Noel said in a press conference that they’d fallen out because his brother wanted to place advertisements for his clothing company, Pretty Green, in their tour programme. He also claimed that Liam had forced the band to pull out of a headline slot at V Festival’s Chelmsford leg that year because he had a hangover. Liam says it was due to a sudden bout of laryngitis.
In a statement issued on Friday, Liam said: “I have taken legal action against Noel Gallagher for statements he made during the Electric Cinema press conference on 6 Jul during which he claimed Oasis pulled out of the 2009 V Festival Chelmsford gig because I had a hangover. That is a lie and I want Oasis fans, and others who were at V, to know the truth”.
He added: “Noel also falsely stated that the demise of Oasis followed a massive row in which he claimed I demanded to advertise my clothing range Pretty Green in the Oasis tour programme. The truth is there was no such discussion or row between us. There are many reasons why Oasis split, but it had nothing to do with my clothing range”.
Finally, he said: “I am used to being called all sort of things by Noel and I have in the past said things about him, but what Noel has alleged this time went way beyond rock n roll banter and questioned my professionalism”.
Prior to Liam’s announcement last week, Noel had told a journalist in a new interview that the band’s split had actually been fairly amicable, which was something of a turnaround. He told The Sun: “After I quit, we had to fold because we were all partners in various businesses – not businesses like selling oranges off the back of a truck, but a touring company and the record label had to close, which took a while and all the money needed to be split. So there was all that fucking nonsense, but as break-ups go, to be honest it was quite amicable. Then Liam started doing interviews and then it was like… hmmm”.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, The Sun published a photograph supposedly taken at the 2009 V Festival in Staffordshire in the early hours of the day Oasis were due to headline the event in Chelmsford. In the photograph, Liam stands at the back of a group of people holding a can of Guinness aloft. He doesn’t look much like he has laryngitis at that point.
The unnamed fan who took the picture told the tabloid: “After the gig in Staffordshire, Noel headed down to London. But Liam, other band members and his close friends stayed and had a party in his trailer. Liam had quite a few beers. He left at 3am to carry on elsewhere. He didn’t seem to have anything wrong with his voice”.
