Gabby Logan has recalled the distressing experience of a Twitter user falsely alleging she was "having an affair with Alan Shearer ", which left her "angry" and panicking for a response.
The incident occurred over a decade ago in 2011, when Logan recalls there were a "load of injunctions being slapped on tabloid newspapers" relating to the rich and famous attempting to bar certain stories from being published. At the time, there was a "rumour swirling" that a former footballer was trying to prevent one such story from reaching the printing press.
This prompted mass speculation on social media as to which ex-player was involved and what he was attempting to keep out of the limelight. To Logan's initial amusement, one Twitter user tagged her and claimed she was embroiled in an affair with former Newcastle and England striker Shearer.
In Logan's memoir, serialised by the Mail on Sunday, the mother of two wrote, "A message popped up on my timeline: 'I hear this injunction concerns @gabbylogan who is having an affair with Alan Shearer.' I laughed when I read it. Then I got angry. Then I panicked."
Logan had a facial appointment a few minutes after reading the tweet and hastily responded by writing: "I think you should be careful what you write on here. The publishing laws apply and you are guilty of defamation of character with that."
The BBC presenter suspects this reply "prodded the bear", as she quickly received another tweet which said: "So @gabbylogan, are you saying that you haven’t been having an affair with Alan Shearer?" Logan quickly shot down the false claim and went in for her facial appointment, hoping that was the last of the episode.
However, she received a call from her agent the following Sunday morning and was told to buy a copy of the News of the World. Upon turning to pages four and five of the newspaper, Logan saw the headline 'TV's Gabby Logan denies affair with Alan Shearer', with a "story of absolute nothingness" underneath it.
There were pictures of Logan - who has been married to former Scotland rugby union player Kenny since 2001 - and her husband walking their children to school. The News of the World also alleged that she had been "at the World Cup in 2010 in South Africa with Alan Shearer".
In truth, the two BBC employees were in different locations throughout the tournament, as Logan was based at the England training camp in Rustenberg and Shearer was with the studio team in Cape Town. Logan added: "Kenny and I knew there was not a grain of truth pertaining to anything this article suggested, but that didn't stop the gossiping. People Kenny had known for years rang him to 'lend support'."
