Latest news with #NeilSands
Irish Independent
12 hours ago
- Business
- Irish Independent
Inside the Tattle Life scandal: The gossipy website that became the ‘most hate-filled corner of the web'
Business owners Donna and Neil Sands won a landmark defamation case against the online platform that tore influencers, celebrities and TV presenters to shreds. But who was behind the vitriol and why did they do it? Kirsty Blake Knox tries to make sense of online trolling It was a friend who first brought Tattle Life to the attention of Irish business owner Neil Sands. Someone on the site had opened a thread about his wife Donna Sands' fashion brand Silkie. 'And what they were saying, you wouldn't repeat,' Mr Sands says.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The VERY middle-class life of the 'King of Trolls': How Tattle Life creator Sebastian Bond's background is a world away from toxic site he founded
The man unmasked as the creator of brutal gossip forum Tattle Life hails from a very comfortable background in the West Country, MailOnline can reveal. Vegan influencer Sebastian Bond's retired parents, former company director Henry Bond, 76, and his wife Sheila, 75, live in a £500,000 detached four-bedroomed house in Glastonbury, Somerset with no mortgage, official records show. Their plush home was used in documents when their son set up one of his companies, Kumquat Tree Limited, in February 2024. In a historic libel case against Bond, who was found to have run the 'toxic' Tattle Life platform where users could anonymously post nasty and defamatory comments about people in the public eye, a judge said that Kumquat Tree Limited had received money generated from the site. Bond, 41, dubbed 'The King of Trolls', who is believed to be living somewhere in the Far East after losing a devastating libel case, in which damages of £300,000 were awarded against him, is the third of the Bonds' four children. The polite gentility of the middle-class street where the Bonds live is in stark contrast to the often toxic content of their son's website, which is supposedly aimed at exposing disingenuous influencers. It swiftly became a breeding ground for trolls to hurl abuse at everyone from Mrs Hinch and Stacey Solomon to mummy bloggers with small followings. Tech entrepreneur Neil, 43, and Donna Sands, 34, won their historic libel case after suing the founder for 'defamation and harassment' over posts aimed at them on the site at the High Court in Northern Ireland in 2023. It was never clear what motivated the online campaign directed against the couple, which they argued in court was 'hate speech'. The site, which attracts 12 million visitors a month, is supposedly aimed at exposing disingenuous influencers, but it quickly became a paradise for trolls to hurl abuse at them Mr Sands and his lawyers discovered that Sebastian Bond created various online aliases apparently to mask his ownership of Tattle Life, one of which was Bastian Durward, a surname which, MailOnline can reveal, came from his paternal grandmother Chrissie May Durward, who died in 1957, aged 48. It didn't take long to find examples of abuse aimed at celebrities and others on Tattle, which attracts around 12million visitors a month. One poster remarked: 'It's really obvious (and sad) to see that her self worth is directly linked to how skinny she is. The aforementioned manic/attention seeking behaviours evidence that. 'She knows she looks tiny and so she is jumping at the chance (with a totally random narrative) to flaunt it on the internet in the hope she is flooded with comments and DMs from onlookers. 'It's a super sad way to live and she is an abominable and dangerous example to her daughters.' Another piled on with: 'I've seen girls on hen dos look better than her. She couldn't be more (sic) anymore unsexy tbh' Neil and Donna Sands appeared on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday and told hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley about the 'stalking' and 'horrendous feeling' of the 'daily abuse'. Donna, who runs fashion label Sylkie along with other brands and has a 'modest' 20,000 followers, said: 'It impacted me on so many different levels. I would wake up and I would think "what have they said now in the last 7 hours" when I would turn on my phone. My body would actually just shake.' In an effort to 'overcome' it all, she joined Trinity College to do an MBA but when her fellow professionals in class asked her what her business was called she didn't want to tell them. 'Everyone is normally proud of their business and able to say it and the first thing I thought when I started an MBA was "they're all going to google me and this thread will come up",' she said. Her husband Neil, an AI founder, explained how they found 'defamatory details' of their businesses 'that were completely untrue'. The couple said the defamatory comments about their enterprises 'completely misrepresented' everything they do and accused Donna of selling 'poor quality' clothes and 'over-representing' her prices. Neil said the trolls even went down to the 'molecular level' of finding information about their finances on Companies House and posting them on the site. He said: 'It got more menacing overtime and eventually it got into stalking. There was lots of commentary about where we were, who we were in restaurants with, "we are watching you" stuff like that.' But the online stalkers soon turned to in person harassment with trolls telling the couple 'we we can see you in this restaurant, we are looking at you right now'. Obsessive 'Tattlers' even started driving back and fourth past their home and posted details of their house on Tattle Life threads dedicated to abusing them. Donna, revealed how she went from 'someone who has stood on the shop floor since I was 16 years of age meeting people all the time' to being 'completely withdrawn'. In December 2023, the Sands obtained awards of £150,000 in damages each, plus legal costs in mounting the action over what they termed as 'hate speech'. In a ruling at that stage, Mr Justice McAlinden stated: 'A day of reckoning will come for those behind Tattle Life and for those individuals who posted on Tattle Life.' According to the judge, the site had been set up to deliberately inflict hurt and harm on others by allowing the anonymous trashing of people's reputations. 'This is clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit,' he stated. In a complex two-year legal battle funded by themselves, the Sands deployed advanced technological and intelligence methods as they sought to discover who was in charge of the site, reported the Belfast Telegraph. Earlier this week, the defendants were able to be legally identified as Sebastian Bond and the British and Hong Kong-registered companies Yuzu Zest Limited and Kumquat Tree Limited. Yuzu Zest Limited, a UK-registered company controlled by Bond, was placed into voluntary liquidation just weeks after he was hit with a £300,000 damages judgement in December 2023. A resolution to wind up the company was signed on 27 September 2024, and a liquidator was formally appointed the following month. Despite being wound up, Yuzu Zest was named in a High Court freezing order issued in December 2024, as lawyers tried to secure £1.8million in assets linked to Tattle Life's operations. Just weeks after that order was issued, Bond incorporated a second company - Kumquat Tree Limited - in Hong Kong on 22 February 2024. Although his parents' detached home was used in documentation, official mail for the firm is directed to Jinda Outsourcing Co., Ltd., an accountancy firm in Bangkok. In March 2025, the court extended the freezing order to include Kumquat, after financial disclosures revealed it had also received funds linked to the website. The Sands' barrister Peter Girvan argued it was now beyond doubt that Mr Bond operated the site. With reporting restrictions and anonymity orders lifted, further legal efforts are now expected to focus on securing enforcement of the damages award. Other celebrities are also likely to mount their own libel actions.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE My life was ruined by Tattle Life: Trolls lied about my business and claimed they were stalking me in person - so I exposed the site's gossip king
A couple whose lives were ruined by ruthless trolls on a viral gossip site have laid bare the nightmare they endured - after 'menacing' anonymous posters would leave nasty comments, stalk them, and drive back and forth past their home. Neil and Donna Sands from Northern Ireland have fought back and were awarded £300,000 at the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland in 2023 - after successfully suing the 'toxic' platform Tattle Life; whose founder was revealed to be a male vegan influencer who had penned a cookbook. Speaking to MailOnline, the pair explained that the past four years have been marred by the 'lonely' legal endeavour, and left them riddled with panic over what would be said online. Donna, who runs fashion label Sylkie, revealed how the online harassment started in 2021. She had briefly known that Tattle existed, but coming from a small village 'was never going to be on it or anything of the sort'. One afternoon, a friend called her and warned that people in her office were 'laughing' at a post on the message boards. 'It was horrible,' she continued, on discovering the 45-page thread. 'I've been working in fashion since I was 16, I started on the shop floor and really built a community. 'To watch a reputation just fall apart... I was just so upset.' Speaking on GMB this week, the pair detailed how defamatory comments about their enterprises 'completely misrepresented' everything they do and accused Donna of selling 'poor quality' clothes and 'over-representing' her prices. Neil said the trolls even went down to the 'molecular level' of finding information about their finances on Companies House and posting them on the site. 'It got more menacing overtime and eventually it got into stalking,' he added. 'There was lots of commentary about where we were, who we were in restaurants with, "we are watching you" stuff like that.' Some even turned to in person, and would tell the couple: 'We we can see you in this restaurant, we are looking at you right now.' Obsessive 'Tattlers' even started driving back and forth past their home and posted details of their house on Tattle Life threads dedicated to abusing them. 'It's just that most businesses need to have a social media presence these days,' Donna told MailOnline. 'And with these threads, it almost gets competitive with who can have the nastiest comment about it.' Overwhelmed, Donna and Neil reached out to the site and asked them to take the comments down, with the fashion founder's husband sending 'at least' five emails with the request. 'We begged him at one point,' Donna added. 'Eventually we had to take legal action.' The defamation case proved to be a 'lengthy' and technical process, as the couple had to prove that the remarks were indeed - defamatory. On another level, they were faced with the daunting task of digging into the site itself, which eventually led them to the 41-year-old British businessman behind the forum - Sebastian Bond. The website publisher, who also goes by alias Bastian Durward, used the fake name 'Helen McDougal' on Tattle Life. 'I was surprised and not surprised that it was a man pretending to be a woman,' Donna explained. 'Not to be mean to men of course, but I was just not surprised that it was a man portending to be a woman and pinning these women against each other - driving them to their darkest places.' Neil - who works in AI - explained how Tattle's mastermind was found following lengthy research on his digital footprints and any 'chinks in his armour'. 'It's tough,' he admitted. 'Even if you're just visiting the site, you're paying this guy money.' Elsewhere, investigation firm Nardello & Co has also spoken of their involvement , which included 'the piecing together of countless, disparate fragments of the operator's multiple online identities, aliases, and personas, amassed over the course of two decades'. 'Despite their sophistication, traces were left in the public record across the UK, including in the operator's online digital footprint,' said Alan Kennedy of the firm. 'Cases of anonymous harassment and online defamation of this nature are becoming increasingly common, complex and damaging.' Although the couple won their defamation case, Bond - whose legal team has in a letter to court confirmed he runs Tattle Life, but claimed they weren't aware of litigation (something Donna and Neil's team has disputed) - they admit their work is far from done. The couple are still waiting for the case review later this month, and want to highlight the severity of what the site has driven people to do - as well as the duress they're put under. 'We got married amid all this,' Donna - who has privately also dealt with health issues during this period - said. 'It's all been in the background when we should have been getting on with our lives. It breaks my heart.' 'Our story pales in comparison,' Neil added. 'Some of the messages we've gotten have been horrific, with the self harm and mental health issues people have grappled with because of the site. 'It's been really, really dark. People have had to completely shut down their businesses.' They specifically highlighted the case of Lisa Davies, who lost her husband Richard to Stage 4 stomach cancer, aged 37, in 2022. The Irish couple who unmasked him as Tattle Life, have shared the names of his alises on their social media - stating that he was masking under the false name as a site moderator, Helen McDougal To this day, the widow is receiving awful trolling on Tattle life from people who are convinced he did not pass away - and demanding to see a death certificate. Some people have even had child protective services come around after getting calls from anonymous online users - a tactic Neil says is often 'weaponised' by tattlers. 'That's the level of depravity you're looking at,' he added. However, the couple say the reaction to Bond's un-masking has been 'phenomenal' - with their Instagram post about the situation, shared over the weekend, being viewed more than 8.3 million times. 'We never wanted or expected to undertake this work, however when we discovered the hate site we were forced to take action,' they wrote. 'We are very grateful for your support, and hope that this serves as a reminder to those who want to attack others from behind a screen - that the internet is not an anonymous place. 'We will share more soon, but for today, we hope that this news will provide some peace to those affected by online hate and harassment, and that the internet can be a safer space for us all.' The pair are also taking their case to higher places, adding that they've been in touch with Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy about the matter. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) - a public body sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology - is also amid their goals, as is search engine Google. And what's more, Neil is working on a software that helps unmask trolls ethically. 'If you want to sat something, put your name on it,' he said. 'As we say, everyone has a right to free speech, but it's not free of consequences.' Speaking on ITV earlier this morning, Donna also revealed how popular British influencer Mrs Hinch reached out to her on the weekend and told the couple how she had been 'actively targeted' on Tattle Life. She added there may be a lot of 'big personalities' who have been abused on the gossip site but highlighted the 'small business owners' and lesser known micro-influencers who have also fallen victim. 'I have a modest following of 20,000 which was a community I curated for years,' she said. 'We all thought we were anonymous and that you could write whatever you want, but maybe now we can move forward positively and know that that's not the case.' For nearly a decade, since the site was set up in 2017, no one knew who ran Tattle Life, with the site's operator going under the fake name Helen McDougal. Many will be now surprised to learn the creator is in fact a man, who is the author and foodie behind plant-based recipe Instagram page Nest and Glow, which boasts 135,000 followers. For the past eight years, the vegan cookbook author he has secretly presided over the site, which makes an estimated £276,770 in Google Ad revenue every six months, according to figures from 2021. Following the court case, Neil and Donna got £150,000 each in damages, and the Court granted an injunctive relief to prevent Tattle Life from posting about the couple again. It was also ordered that the Sands' legal costs be paid, with 'further costs and third-party compliance expenses' amounting to £1.8 million. The thread about them was removed in May this year, but thousands and thousands of others remain. Awarding damages to the couple in December 2023, Mr Justice McAlinden hit out at Tattle Life, stating there was 'clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit'. 'It is the exercise of extreme cynicism - the calculated exercise of extreme cynicism,' he continued. 'Which in reality constitutes behaviour solely aimed at making profit out of people's misery. People facilitating this are making money out of it… protecting their income streams by protecting the identity of the individual posters.' Bond also had his assets frozen and must pay a cessation figure of £1,077,173 to have this order lifted. It's likely that deeply popular Tattle Life racked up a decent amount of money for Bond. As reported by The Guardian in 2021, the blog had 43.2 million visits in just six months of that year. The figures are still in the millions this year. In May, as per Similarweb, there were 11.5 million visits on the site, mostly from British users. It is also understood that Sebastian uses different names online - one of them being Bastian Durward - and owns a number of businesses across the world. Two of them, Mr Justice Colton confirmed, include UK-registered Yuzu Zest Limited and Hong Kong-registered Kumquat Tree Limited. According to Companies House information, the former is currently in liquidation but alleged to offer 'media representation services'. At a hearing last Thursday, the court saw a letter from Sebastian's legal team, sent to one of the plaintiffs, claiming he was the Tattle Life founder but was 'unaware of any legal proceedings against him'. The Sands legal representatives disputed that he was unaware. Tattle Life states on its site that it has a 'zero-tolerance policy to any content that is abusive, hateful, harmful and a team of moderators online 24/7 to remove any content that breaks our strict rules - often in minutes'. However, it adds that 'influencer marketing is insidious' and 'revolves around people that occupy the space between celebrity and friend to stealthy sell when in reality it's a parasocial relationship. 'It's an important part of a healthy, free and fair society for members of the public to have an opinion on those in a position of power and influence; that is why tattle exists. 'We allow people to express their views on businesses away from an influencers feed on a site where they would have to go out of their way to read, this is not trolling.' As reported per The Journal, Neil also said: 'We undertook this case not just for ourselves but for the many people who have suffered serious personal and professional harm through anonymous online attacks on this and other websites. 'We believe in free speech, but not consequence-free speech – particularly where it is intended to, and succeeds in, causing real-world damage to people's lives, livelihoods and mental health. We were in the fortunate position to be able to take the fight to these faceless operators, and it took a lot of time, effort and expense.'
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Operator of gossip forum Tattle Life unmasked after losing defamation case
The previously anonymous operator of an online gossip forum described as a trolls' paradise has been unmasked after losing a defamation case. Sebastian Bond, also known as Bastian Durward, has been confirmed as the man behind Tattle Life after an Irish couple successfully sued the publisher, according to reports. Tattle Life describes itself as a platform for 'commentary and critiques of people that choose to monetise their personal life as a business and release it into the public domain'. It attracts up to 12 million visitors monthly, mostly in the UK. The website has long been criticised for threads of toxic and hate-filled comments. On Friday at the high court of justice in Northern Ireland, Mr Justice Colton confirmed that Bond and two of his firms – Yuzu Zest Limited, a UK-registered company, and Kumquat Tree Limited, registered in Hong Kong – were the publishers of the site, the Journal reported. Bond had been using the name 'Helen McDougal' on the website. Bond, who the court heard uses a number of other aliases, is known on the internet as a vegan cooking influencer and author of the book Nest and Glow. The Nest and Glow Instagram account has 135,000 followers. The plaintiffs in the case were Neil and Donna Sands, who were originally awarded £300,000 damages against the then unknown operators of Tattle Life in late 2023. Donna Sands runs the popular clothing brand Sylkie, while Neil Sands is an AI founder and businessman. The couple were subject to defamation and harassment on the website. Mr Justice McAlinden said the website was 'solely aimed at making profit out of people's misery'. He said: 'This is clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit. People facilitating this are making money out of it … protecting their income streams by protecting the identity of the individual posters.' After the ruling on Friday, the couple posted a statement on Instagram. It read: 'For nearly a decade, the hate site Tattle Life has profited as a space where users could defame, harass, stalk and attack others online – all behind a veil of seeming anonymity. 'Today, we secured a court order to unmask the site's operator, who has used the false name 'Helen McDougal'. Their true identity, however, is an Englishman named Sebastian Henry Bond, aka Bastian Durward (43). 'For some this court ruling comes sadly too late, as the site has cost innocent people their businesses, reputations and mental health. For others we hope it marks a turning point – a reminder that the internet is not an anonymous place.' This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. The Sands claimed to be subject to defamatory and harassing commentary in a 45-page thread that was only finally removed last month. In 2023 the court issued a series of orders designed to trace and freeze assets owned by the then anonymous Bond. The couple succeeded in freezing money believed to be the proceeds of Tattle Life in a range of jurisdictions around the world. Peter Barr, a partner at the law firm Gateley NI, who represented the Sands, told the Journal: 'This wasn't just a matter of law, it was a global forensic investigation. We had to pursue the money around the world, from the UK to Hong Kong, using a mix of legal innovation and digital evidence to expose what was clearly a sophisticated effort to avoid scrutiny.'
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Tattle Life victims who unmasked creator of 'trolls paradise' reveal every time they turned on their phone they would shake with fear at what was coming next
The couple who unmasked the creator of the brutal gossip forum Tattle Life have told of how they would 'shake with fear' every time they woke up and checked their phones at what was coming next. Neil and Donna Sands won their historic libel case after suing the founder for 'defamation and harassment' in posts aimed at them on the site and were awarded £300,000 at the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland in 2023. In turn, they uncovered the man behind it all to be British 'business owner' and vegan influencer Sebastian Bond, 41, when restrictions on identifying him were lifted last week. The site, which attracts 12 million visitors a month, is supposedly aimed at exposing disingenuous influencers, but it quickly became a paradise for trolls to hurl abuse at everyone from Mrs Hinch and Stacey Solomon to mummy bloggers with small followings. Neil and Donna today appeared on Good Morning Britain and told hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley about the 'stalking' and the 'horrendous feeling' of the 'daily abuse'. Donna, who runs fashion label Sylkie along with other brands and has a 'modest' 20,000 followers, said: 'It impacted me on so many different levels. 'Every morning I would wake up and I would think "ok what have they said now in the last 7 hours" when I would turn on my phone. My body would actually just shake.' In an effort to 'overcome' it all, she joined Trinity College to do an MBA but when her fellow professionals in class asked her what her business was called she didn't want to tell them. The site, which attracts 12 million visitors a month, is supposedly aimed at exposing disingenuous influencers, but it quickly became a paradise for trolls to hurl abuse at them 'Everyone is normally proud of their business and able to say it and the first thing I thought when I started an MBA was "they're all going to google me and this thread will come up",' she said. Her husband Neil, an AI founder, explained how they found 'defamatory details' of their businesses 'that were completely untrue'. The couple said the defamatory comments about their enterprises 'completely misrepresented' everything they do and accused Donna of selling 'poor quality' clothes and 'over-representing' her prices. Neil said the trolls even went down to the 'molecular level' of finding information about their finances on Companies House and posting them on the site. He said: 'It got more menacing overtime and eventually it got into stalking. There was lots of commentary about where we were, who we were in restaurants with, "we are watching you" stuff like that.' But the online stalkers soon turned to in person harassment with trolls telling the couple 'we we can see you in this restaurant, we are looking at you right now'. Obsessive 'Tattlers' even started driving back and fourth past their home and posted details of their house on Tattle Life threads dedicated to abusing them. Donna, revealed how she went from 'someone who has stood on the shop floor since I was 16 years of age meeting people all the time' to being 'completely withdrawn'. The couple said the defamatory comments about their enterprises 'completely misrepresented' everything they do and accused Donna of selling 'poor quality' clothes and 'over-representing' her prices Neil and Donna today appeared on Good Morning Britain and told hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley about the 'stalking' and the 'horrendous feeling' of the 'daily abuse' 'It made me doubt what people were thinking of me,' she said, adding that Bond 'needed to be made accountable' for the impact it had on them and others. The pair explained many other people who were victimised by cruel posts and threads have attempted to take legal action in the past but were unsuccessful. Neil said: 'We didn't do it for us , we never wanted to undertake this work. 'I'm a technologist by trade and I think folks did try. This gentleman would open his inbox and see very many solicitors letters, I'm sure, from different entities that were affected by the site. 'But you need both a legal fortitude to pursue something like this and also a technical understanding of how they are built and thankfully some of my friends who worked in Silicon Valley helped with the unpacking of who was behind the site.' Donna added: 'It's quite amazing because so many people have got to a certain stage in the legal battle and when we undertook it we didn't want to do it but we thought if we could do something, we should. 'My mum said, "Donna, why are the police not stepping in at this stage?".' They are 'just delighted that the judge took it so seriously', with Donna adding: 'It's been a really difficult road and there has been so many twists and turns in the case to get where we are today.' She explained how the 45 pages of abuse which were presented to the High Court 'wasn't that much' in the context of the whole site. 'That it actually probably one of the smallest threads on there. Other people have huge amounts, it reaches people all across the world from Australia to America and even closer to home.' Donna revealed how popular British influencer Mrs Hinch reached out to her on the weekend and told the couple how she had been 'actively targeted' on Tattle Life. She added there may be a lot of 'big personalities' who have been abused on the gossip site but highlighted the 'small business owners' and lesser known micro-influencers who have also fallen victim. 'I have a modest following of 20,000 which was a community I curated for years,' she said, 'We all thought we were anonymous and that you could write whatever you want, but maybe now we can move forward positively and know that that's not the case.' For nearly a decade, since the site was set up in 2017, no one knew who ran Tattle Life, with the site's operator going under the fake name Helen McDougal. Many will be now surprised to learn the creator is in fact a man, who is the author and foodie behind plant-based recipe Instagram page Nest and Glow, which boasts 135,000 followers. For the past eight years, the vegan cookbook author he has secretly presided over the site, which makes an estimated £276,770 in Google Ad revenue every six months, according to figures from 2021. Donna and Neil found a 45-page thread about them and reached out to the site operators in 2021 asking them to take down the commentary 'or face legal action'. The Irish couple who unmasked him as Tattle Life, have shared the names of his alises on their social media - stating that he was masking under the false name as a site moderator, Helen McDougal In 2023, they initiated the process. Neil and Donna got £150,000 each in damages, and the Court granted an injunctive relief to prevent Tattle Life from posting about the couple again. It was also ordered that the Sands' legal costs be paid, with 'further costs and third-party compliance expenses' amounting to £1.8 million. The thread about them was removed in May this year, but thousands and thousands of others remain. Awarding damages to the couple in December 2023, Mr Justice McAlinden hit out at Tattle Life, stating there was 'clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit'. 'It is the exercise of extreme cynicism - the calculated exercise of extreme cynicism,' he continued. 'Which in reality constitutes behaviour solely aimed at making profit out of people's misery. People facilitating this are making money out of it… protecting their income streams by protecting the identity of the individual posters.' Bond also had his assets frozen and must pay a cessation figure of £1,077,173 to have this order lifted. It's likely that deeply popular Tattle Life racked up a decent amount of money for Bond. As reported by The Guardian in 2021, the blog had 43.2 million visits in just six months of that year. The figures are still in the millions this year. In May, as per Similarweb, there were 11.5 million visits on the site, mostly from British users. It is also understood that Sebastian uses different names online - one of them being Bastian Durward - and owns a number of businesses across the world. Two of them, Mr Justice Colton confirmed, include UK-registered Yuzu Zest Limited and Hong Kong-registered Kumquat Tree Limited. According to Companies House information, the former is currently in liquidation but alleged to offer 'media representation services'. At a hearing last Thursday, the court saw a letter from Sebastian's legal team, sent to one of the plaintiffs, claiming he was the Tattle Life founder but was 'unaware of any legal proceedings against him'. The Sands legal representatives disputed that he was unaware.
