"From Date Confusion to 'Package' Size: Why James Blunt Is Definitely Not the Rock Star Hayden Slept With at 18"

COLEEN ROONEY, aka Wagatha Christie, has a lot to answer for.

Ever since her 2019 posts unveiling arch nemesis Rebekah Vardy as the alleged leak of Press stories, social media users now reckon they too are veritable online sleuths.

Sometimes it’s funny, other times not. Now poor , a funnier, nicer chap you’ll struggle to meet in the land of showbiz, is the latest .

Over the past week he has been subject to thousands of awful allegations and truly disgusting, slanderous slurs. And it needs to stop. Now.

For anyone unfamiliar with this current internet maelstrom, allow me to recap.

In 2009, the double Brit-award winning singer partied with the late actress at an AmfAR charity dinner in Cannes. They got on well, had fun and never saw one another again.

End of story, you might think. But no. Not in the world of , and dangerous keyboard warriors.

at 36 from a suspected overdose, a story from her autobiography has resurfaced, landing James front and centre of the nefarious events that subsequently unfolded.

In the tome, the American actress recounted an uncomfortable moment on a boat when she was just 18.

She recalled being introduced to a “thirty-something British singer-songwriter” — James would have been 35 at the time — whom she was introduced to while the unnamed man (not James) was naked in bed.

The trusted girlfriend who’d led her towards this rendezvous told her to “get in bed with him. He has a huge d***”.

Hayden went on to describe her “great shock”, “pounding heart” and “disassociation” during the incident before she managed to flee to a nearby hotel.

People online have done the maths, incorrectly, and are saying James is the unnamed man.

Once again, he is not. So allow me to clear up some facts, and get this case closed once and for all.

To start, these sleuths are a year out. podcast earlier this year that she was 18 when the incident happened.

In May 2009, she was 19, and in an age-related allegation, that detail matters. Either way, this proves it’s not James ­— and that people are looking at the wrong boat trip.

Secondly, and Hayden were photographed, not just at the AmfAR dinner, but with pals the following day, May 22, happily having breakfast with a group of pals. In fact, the group continued to party (this is Cannes, after all) for a total of three days.

This means Hayden’s assertion she never saw this man again after being introduced in his cabin, simply cannot have been the You’re Beautiful singer.

Thirdly, in the May 2009 trip, Hayden did not flee to a nearby hotel. She instead went to house the following day — not to a hotel — and paparazzi got pictures of her there.

Finally, and James might wish to skim over this bit of “conclusive evidence”, according to another superstar, , wee Jimmie is, well, not of “big d***”.

As Joan wryly observed in a piece for The Spectator last year, an article entitled “The day James Blunt stripped off in front of me”, the 93-year-old screen legend recounted the singer stripping off to his budgie smugglers during a raucous pool party.

According to Dame Joan, James has a “package worthy of a field mouse”.
So, again, not your man (sorry, James). So all of this could be dismissed as meaningless tittle-tattle.

At the end of the day, there was no allegation the Naked Man ever said or did anything.

If only the consequences of online detectives weren’t so harmful and, frankly, upsetting.

Because ahead of his forthcoming appearance on Celebrity Traitors, now the star’s socials are being bombarded with fans accusing him of being a “dangerous predator” and worse.

It all makes for incredibly disturbing reading.

Weirder still, the online conspiracy brigade thinks James’ video for his new song, Tastes Like Summer, is an admission he killed Hayden, and is a cannibal. You couldn’t make it up. Except these people are, quite literally, making it up.

In a brilliant substack, former journalist Dean Piper, ironically the man who originally wrote about the pair partying in the south of France, writes: “Here lies the problem with the Wild West of internet chatter. Facts don’t matter. Legalities don’t matter. People are saying whatever they like and getting away with it and that is wrong.”
Grossly wrong, it is.

Hayden lived much of her life in the spotlight — from success as a child star to lead roles in hit TV shows Heroes and Nashville — but also endured well-documented struggles synonymous with the pressures of fame.

Aged 19, she met Ukrainian boxing champion at a party in Los Angeles and they began a relationship. He was 13 years older than her, and they had a daughter five years later.

The actress wrote in her autobiography: “From a very young age, I lost the chance to have a normal childhood,friends, relationships, and my privacy.”
Now, James has a sense of humour and anyone who follows his wonderful X ripostes will have seen this first-hand.

I’ve been lucky enough to interview this exceptionally talented musician (and let’s not forget he served in the British Army for six years, undertaking a dangerous tour of Kosovo in the process) as well as share a couple of drinks with him at various functions.

He is witty, smart and gregarious. He has also not once allowed global fame to go to his head.

He also has a skin thicker than a particularly aged rhino, which is a good job given the trolling he’s had over the years (he was named “fourth-most irritating thing in Briton” in a 2006 poll, one ranking him higher than traffic wardens and noisy neighbours).

But I am told the messages he has received, the disgusting comments, have hurt him. Badly. Of course, he is damned if he speaks out, damned if he doesn’t.

So James may not wish to speak out, but I shall.

And for those wishing for the extermination of the British Press, a quick reminder: Newspapers are governed by laws that the internet are not, so for all those wishing for the extermination of a free Press, maybe think again.