Bjork lays into NZ snapper

When elfin chanteuses attack

By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in Entertainment, 14th January 2008 13:38 GMT

Elfin Icelandic chanteuse Bjork has sealed her reputation for laying into the press by attacking a New Zealand Herald snapper at Auckland International Airport yesterday.

The battling warbler set about the Herald's Glenn Jeffrey when he photographed her arriving at 7.50am. The shaken lensman recounted: "I took a couple of pictures and I got about three or four frames of her... and as I turned and walked away she came up behind me, grabbed the back of my black skivvy and tore it down the back. As she did this she fell over, she fell to the ground. At no stage did I touch her or speak with her."

Jeffrey subsequently spoke to police about the incident, and insisted: "I don't see being assaulted as I'm working as a press photographer as an acceptable thing. If anybody assaults anybody you have the right to a legal recourse, whoever they are."

A spokeswoman for Auckland International Airport confirmed staff would "review video footage if police requested it".

Bjork famously indulged in a light bit of bitchslapping back in 1996 when she downed a journalist in Thailand's Don Muang Airport. The incident was apparently provoked by someone telling her: "Welcome to Bangkok." The video evidence shows just how ill-advised this was: