It was not one of the mainstream media’s better weeks as the vultures have been circling the carcass of former BP chairman and CEO Lord Browne’s business career after the lurid Daily Mail was finally allowed by an English court to reveal that Browne had engaged in a homosexual affair with a younger man. Lord Browne has resigned in disgrace, but there is much more to this story than the headlines that most of the mainstream media is passing along.
Turns out that the Daily Mail has been pursuing for over a year a story to out the 59 year old Browne, who had built a fine reputation while rising through the management ranks of England’s largest company. A private man who has never married and still lives with his mother, Lord Browne had a four year relationship with a 27 year old Canadian with the surreal name of Jeff Chevalier, who Browne had supported in a small business that, of course, folded.
So, what was Chevalier’s response to Lord Browne’s generosity? Cozying up to the Daily Mail for some “Kiss n’ Tell” money at the expense of Browne’s private life.
Lord Browne didn’t react well initially to this attack, but it was understandable that the top executive of a huge, multi-national energy concern wanted to keep a private homosexual relationship out of the media glare while he is responsible for dealing with many foreign executives who don’t have particularly tolerant views toward such relationships. Matt Parris summed this point up well:
When Lord Browne told his shaving mirror, that it was not in the interests of BPís shareholders that his gay private lifestyle became public property, he was not imagining the problem. One can only imagine what Vladimir Putin thinks about gays ñ but this was a statesman whose confidence Browne (and BP) needed. The Arab and Muslim world has no problem with secret homosexuality, but every kind of problem with acknowleged and proclaimed homosexuality.
As a result, Lord Browne panicked and perjured himself about where he met Chevalier, claiming that he met him while “out jogging” rather than in a gay chat-room. Even though he quickly recanted and apologized, that mistake in judgment ended up costing Browne at least $20 million, his reputation and a sterling business career.
The Daily Mail’s self-serving justification in outing Lord Browne was that he was “misusing BP’s resources” in helping Chevalier and, thus, it was in the BP shareholders’ interests for Lord Browne’s private life to be exposed. But an internal BP investigation found that allegation to be baseless. Sure, Browne should not have lied, but the only reason he was placed in that position in the first place was that the Daily Mail decided that he deserved to be outed because he was rich, powerful and gay.
So, a proud and talented executive was not allowed to go on managing the largest British company while maintaining the privacy of his personal life, publicity of which was not in his company’s interests for the reasons noted above. That he was not allowed to do so is a poor reflection on English society, in general, and the Daily Mail, in particular.
