US tabloid National Enquirer has made a formal apology after making false claims about the late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.
The magazine had made allegations about Hoffman and his friend, the playwright David Bar Katz.
Katz signed a complaint in a libel suit within hours of publication and the magazine apologised two days later.
"My 14-year-old said, "Dad, there's something online about you and Phil being lovers'," Katz told the New York Times. "I said, 'Phil would get a kick out of that'."
He added: "Things had already achieved the maximum level of surreality, and I thought this thing online was a big nothing
"After I dropped the kids at school, I looked at my phone, and I've gotten a million calls."
The tabloid and its publisher American Media Incorporated has settled with Katz, and has taken out a full-page advert written by Katz's lawyer Judd Burstein in today's (February 26) edition of the New York Times for its apology.
It will also fund Katz's newly-formed American Playwriting Foundation and its annual Relentless Award prize of $45,000 for an unproduced play.
