Johann Hari apologises after wrongly claiming Jay Rayner had taken Ozempic
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An author who has previously admitted plagiarism wrongly claimed in a new book that Jay Rayner, the food critic, had taken Ozempic.
Johann Hari, the journalist previously exposed for plagiarism and fabricating quotes, has since apologised for including the claim in Magic Pill, his book about weight-loss drugs.
He wrote of Rayner, the food critic and MasterChef judge: “He said that Ozempic robbed him of his pleasure in food so severely that even in great restaurants in Paris, he couldn’t find any joy.”
This was dismissed as “very much defamatory” and “complete and utter b-----ks” by Rayner, who said he had never taken Ozempic.
Writing on social media, Rayner said: “In his new book, Magic Pill, about so-called fat drugs like Ozempic, [Hari] says I was prescribed the drug but gave it up because it robbed me of pleasure in food. This is complete and utter b-----ks.
“I wrote one column on the subject in which I explained why I would NEVER take it. The piece is clear. I explained why I would not be using it. I didn’t say anything about Paris restaurants. This was completely checkable.”
Rayner continued: “He’s now repeating this cobblers in interviews. We know [Hari] is a terrible journalist (I use the term loosely)... But Christ, checking something like this isn’t hard.
“I am mystified as to why Bloomsbury Books did not go through the text with a fine-tooth comb. The issue is that stuff like this ends up on the record. So for the record, and contrary to what [Hari] has written and said, I have never used Ozempic or anything similar.”
Hari has responded, saying that he had mixed up Rayner with another journalist.
“I confused an article by Jay Rayner in the Guardian with an article by Leila Latif in the same paper talking about losing pleasure in food. I apologise to Jay for getting this wrong, and am gutted I and my fact-checkers missed it,” he wrote on Twitter.
In her article, Latif wrote of the side effects of taking medication for a long-standing health condition, although it was later clarified that she was not taking semaglutide, which is sold under the brand name Ozempic.
“I will of course get this corrected immediately. Again I apologise unreservedly to Jay,” Hari added.
Rayner accepted the apology but said: “I am now waiting for his publishers to tell me how they will rectify the error in all editions of the book.”
In his original posts, Rayner said that Hari’s claim was defamatory because: “a) It suggests that I took a drug which would impact my ability to enjoy food, ie do my job, when I didn’t. b) Given I wrote a piece saying I would not take it, it means I lied.”
Star columnist
Hari’s career initially unravelled in 2011 when a reader noticed that a quote from one of his stories had been cut and pasted from a book. At the time, he was a star columnist at the Independent.
More examples came to light, and he admitted to multiple instances of plagiarism and embellishing quotes. He also admitted to using the pseudonym “David Rose” to attack other journalists, after the IP address for the malicious postings was traced back to the Independent’s offices.
“In a few instances, I edited the entries of people I had clashed with in ways that were juvenile or malicious… I am mortified to have done this,” he said.
Hari handed back his George Orwell Prize for political journalism – he had been the youngest ever recipient of the award – and announced that he would take a journalism course.
Asked by the Guardian in 2015 whether he was worried about his credibility, Hari said: “Well, I f----d up and it’s perfectly right for people to be sceptical. I know I’ve got work to do in regaining trust.”
A spokesman for Bloomsbury said: “This is an unfortunate mistake which we are in the process of correcting across all editions. We confirm there was a fact checking process in place for Magic Pill by Johann Hari. The error occurred when an article was wrongly attributed to Jay Rayner and we sincerely apologise to him.”
