Columnist Defends Gately Comments

Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir apologized for saying last week that Boyzone singer Stephen Gately died in a "sleazy" manner, but she denied allegations of homophobia.

Moir prompted reader outrage when she questioned the "dangerous lifestyle" of Gately last Friday, just one day before his funeral. The singer died of natural causes in Spain after he and his civil partner, Andrew Cowles, went to a nightclub and returned to their apartment with a Bulgarian man.

Moir apologized to Gately's family on Friday for the "insensitive timing" of her column, but she insisted that antigay views did not motivate her comments, according to London's Guardian newspaper.

"Anyone who knows me will vouch that I have never held such poisonous views," Moir told The Guardian. "If he had been a heterosexual member of a boy band, I would have written exactly the same article."