TELEVISION personality Paul O'Grady has settled his phone-hacking claim for "substantial" damages.
The announcement was made at a hearing at the High Court in London.
A judge heard that News Group Newspapers, publisher of the now defunct News of the World newspaper, accepted that his "voicemail messages were intercepted and that there has been a misuse of his private information".
Mr O'Grady's lawyer Nicola McCann told the court of the anger and distress caused to the star, who rose to fame with his drag queen alter ego Lily Savage and now presents his own daytime chat show.
She said: "NGN accepts that voicemail interception took place but the full extent of such interception will never be known."
The star, who was contacted by police in 2011 and this year, was "extremely angry" to discover evidence of misuse.
He was "particularly distressed as in 2002 and 2005 private medical information, which he did not know the provenance of at the time, had ended up in an article in the News of the World".
The lawyer added that messages left for him from close friends and family whilst he was in hospital were deleted and he had not understood why.
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