Mail gets into a muddle over Meg (not that one)

Hutchison gave details of White’s new life and even published some snaps of her in the street, looking very different to how she did during her rock star pomp. As well she might – because not only was the woman in the story not Meg White, she even told the reporter she wasn’t.

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The Mail has since quietly scrubbed the story from its site as it emerged the woman they had trailed and photographed was not White, but a friend of hers. When they approached her, she laughed and said they were mistaken – but, as she said “thank you” when the Mail complimented the White Stripes’s music, that was apparently enough for Hutchinson to conclude it was actually her.

White has avoided public appearances since the band’s split in 2011, declining all media offers and public events. When the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year she declined to attend and instead sent a message of thanks via former bandmate and ex-husband Jack White.

“Neither Meg nor the friend that was pictured had any idea they were being stalked and, if they had, they for sure would not have voluntarily chosen to be featured in anything having to do with the Daily Mail,” a music label executive who is friends with both White and the friend who was photographed told the Guardian.

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“I can also assure you that Meg is well and is living the private life she chooses and deserves in Detroit.”

Singer-songwriter Karen Elson, the British supermodel ex-wife of Jack White, posted on social media: “What’s so disheartening is the great lengths they took to try and hunt her down and how reckless and cruel it was to post images of another woman all over the internet.”

Meanwhile, both Hutchison and his story are now living private lives out of the glare of the media. Neither Hutchison nor the Mail have commented, while the story has vanished from the internet without a correction or editor’s note explaining its sudden disappearance.