The Daily Mail today issued a formal apology and agreed to pay "substantial" damages to Sharon Stone over allegations that she left her son in a car while she had a late-night dinner.
In a statement at the high court in London, the paper admitted that the allegations, made in a story last June, were untrue and apologised for the distress and embarrassment caused to the Hollywood star.
Kirsty Howarth, the Mail's solicitor, said the paper had published the articles in good faith on the basis of information it did not doubt at the time.
Stone's solicitor, Rupert Grey, said his client would donate her undisclosed damages to charity.
In the article, headlined "Sharon's son sleeps in car while she dines out", the Mail claimed the star had enjoyed a dinner date at The Ivy restaurant in central London while her four-year-old son stayed outside in a car with a chauffeur for more than two hours.
Mr Grey said the article had criticised her actions and suggested her son was likely to be uncomfortable in the heat and traumatised by flash photography from nearby paparazzi.
"The article conveyed the clear allegation that Sharon Stone had neglected her son in a shameful and selfish way," Mr Grey said in a statement to the court.
He added that Stone had in fact taken her son into the restaurant and had not been eating with a "mystery male companion" as the Mail alleged.
Mr Grey said the allegations had been followed up by other media and repeated in a second Mail article - headlined "Sharon's dinner date and this time her baby goes too" - that used a photo of Stone carrying her other son outside a restaurant.
Today's settlement came ahead of a trial that was scheduled to start on May 8.
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