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Charlotte Church agreed to waive a £100,000 charge for singing at Rupert Murdoch's wedding in exchange for a promise of future favourable coverage in his papers, the singer has said.
The star told the Leveson Inquiry into Press standards she was just 13 at the time and wanted to take the money.
But she was persuaded by her management and record company that she should go for the option of being “looked on favourably” by a “powerful man” like Mr Murdoch.
Church (25) said she accepted that her strategy failed and that the media mogul's newspapers had since been “some of the worst offenders”.
Recounting her experiences of Press intrusion, the singer cited a News of the World article reporting her father was having an affair and that her mother had attempted suicide.
On another occasion The Sun revealed she was pregnant before she had even told her family. She suggested the story must have come from phone hacking or other surveillance.
Church was asked to sing at Mr Murdoch's 1999 wedding to Wendi Deng on the media tycoon's yacht in New York.
She said she was given the choice of £100,000 or receiving favourable publicity from Mr Murdoch's papers in the future.
“This strategy failed for me. In fact, Mr Murdoch's newspapers have since been some of the worst offenders, so much so that I have sometimes felt that there has actually been a deliberate agenda,” she said in a witness statement.
