Last week James Rhodes won a legal battle to publish his memoir Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication and Music. This judgement came after his ex-wife took out an injunction through a court appeal to prevent the book from being published over concerns that the pianist’s account of the sexual abuse he experienced as a child could harm their son.
With the ban lifted, Rhodes appeared at Hay Festival on Saturday night to launch the book during a talk with his friend Stephen Fry. The pair are such good friends, that as well as Fry helping to conduct Rhodes’ second wedding, he revealed that he also became named in his friend’s legal battle. The incident occurred after Fry tweeted a link to a Guardian story about the case, even though all the details including the names were anonymous as the injunction required.
Rhodes was asked by a lawyer to get Fry to delete the tweet:
‘[Stephen] then wrote direct to the lawyer the most astonishing powerful 800 word email I’ve ever seen, I read it every week.
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