Brewdog boss James Watts subject of ‘vicious and relentless’ abuse led by an ex-lover who wanted to ‘take him down’
28 September 2022, 11:28
Brewdog boss James Watts was the subject of ‘vicious and relentless’ abuse led by an ex-lover who wanted to ‘take him down’.
Emili Ziem who he was ‘briefly in a relationship with’ set up fake social media accounts to spread ‘appalling’ lies about Mr Watts.
She then told him she could unmask the 'trolls' for a fee.
In a desperate bid to stop the ‘horrific’ abuse, he agreed to pay her around £100,000 – but the onslaught of hate continued.
He claims her campaign to ‘destroy him’ even saw her spread lies about his conduct with employees for a BBC documentary.
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A judge has now ordered her to pay back £600,000 including expenses after he was ‘harassed, defrauded and defamed’ which ‘deeply affected’ him, his family and business.
Writing on LinkedIn Mr Watts explained: “What we know now, and the court has found, is that she was actually one of the perpetrators and was operating an extremally active troll account against me as part of a dedicated network looking to ‘take James down’ (her words).
“She gave me knowingly false information with the sole intention of deceiving me into agreeing to pay her. She was, in fact, a key part of a network involved in a campaign to do as much damage to me as my business as possible, spreading false and defamatory information with the objective of destroying me personally and damaging our business.”
Mr Watts has vowed to donate the cash to charity.
