The Press Complaints Commission has received a record 22,000 complaints about Jan Moir’s article about Stephen Gately. More complaints in a single weekend than the regulator has received in total in the past five years.

So what was all the fuss about?

We have highlighted the unfair comments in red and our comments in blue

The Jan Moir’s The Mail article in November 2009

A strange, lonely and troubling death . . .

The news of Stephen Gately’s death was deeply shocking. It was not just that another young star had died pointlessly.

Through the recent travails and sad ends of Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and many others, fans know to expect the unexpected of their heroes – particularly if those idols live a life that is shadowed by dark appetites or fractured by private vice.  Stephen did not have a dark appetites or have private vices. Yet Moir claims this with no evidence to support this.

There are dozens of household names out there with secret and not-so-secret troubles, or damaging habits both past and present.

Robbie, Amy, Kate, Whitney, Britney; we all know who they are. And we are not being ghoulish to anticipate, or to be mentally braced for, their bad end: a long night, a mysterious stranger, an odd set of circumstances that herald a sudden death. They knew Dochev how could he be a stranger. Odd we all have at some time invite friends to stay over after a late night clubing.

In the morning, a body has already turned cold before the first concerned hand reaches out to touch an icy celebrity shoulder. It is not exactly a new storyline, is it?

In fact, it is rather depressingly familiar. But somehow we never expected it of him. Never him. Not Stephen Gately.

In the cheerful environs of Boyzone, Gately was always charming, cute, polite and funny.

A founder member of Ireland’s first boy band, he was the group’s co-lead singer, even though he could barely carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk.

He was the Posh Spice of Boyzone, a popular but largely decorous addition.

Gately came out as gay in 1999 after discovering that someone was planning to sell a story revealing his sexuality to a newspaper.

Although he was effectively smoked out of the closet, he has been hailed as a champion of gay rights, albeit a reluctant one. Again bitter comments where the press can be the problem in publishing private matters that no one has the right to know because it is private.

At the time, Gately worried that the revelations might end his ultra-mainstream career as a pin-up, but he received an overwhelmingly positive response from fans. In fact, it only made them love him more.

In 2006, Gately entered into a civil union with internet businessman Andrew Cowles, who had been introduced to him by mutual friends Elton John and David Furnish.

Last week, the couple were enjoying a holiday together in their apartment in Mallorca before their world was capsized.

Boyzone: Gately and his bandmates had a hugely successful career and had recently reformed

All the official reports point to a natural death, with no suspicious circumstances. The Gately family are – perhaps understandably – keen to register their boy’s demise on the national consciousness as nothing more than a tragic accident. Clearly attacking the Gately family making it look like they were covering something up.

Even before the post-mortem and toxicology reports were released by the Spanish authorities, the Gatelys’ lawyer reiterated that they believed his sudden death was due to natural causes.

But, hang on a minute. Something is terribly wrong with the way this incident has been shaped and spun into nothing more than an unfortunate mishap on a holiday weekend, like a broken teacup in the rented cottage.

Consider the way it has been largely reported, as if Gately had gently keeled over at the age of 90 in the grounds of the Bide-a-Wee rest home while hoeing the sweet pea patch.

The sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath. Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again. Yes they do it happened to Stephen and it happens all the time (The editor’s male cousin died at 24 years of age never woke up) People die unexpected every day.

Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered.

And I think if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy. How can a medical complaint be sleazy

After a night of clubbing, Cowles and Gately took a young Bulgarian man back to their apartment. It is not disrespectful to assume that a game of canasta with 25-year-old Georgi Dochev was not what was on the cards.

Cowles and Dochev went to the bedroom together while Stephen remained alone in the living room.

What if Cowles and Dochev went to sleep, if Dochev was meant to sleep on the sofa but Stephen fell asleep on it instead of disturbing him Dochev slept in the same bed of Cowles or even the sofa  in the bedroom. It does not mean they had sex with each other. Maybe the three were in the same bed, and stephen  got up to get a drink of water. Does it really matter if there was a threesome going on it’s really none of our business to know what goes on in private. It does not have any bearing on his death. I’m not sure we could say Stephen was lonely when he had a boyfriend and millions of people would love to have the opportunity to join in. What the press would like to claim that Cowles kicked Stephen out of bed so that he could have his wicked way with Dochev.

Gately’s civil partner, Andrew Cowles

Bulgarian student Georgi Dochev

They were at the apartment on the night of the singer’s death

What happened before they parted is known only to the two men still alive. What happened afterwards is anyone’s guess. Even if there were no other circumstances Moir clearly has to add more speculation.

A post-mortem revealed Stephen died from acute pulmonary oedema, a build-up of fluid on his lungs.

Gately’s family have always maintained that drugs were not involved in the singer’s death, but it has just been revealed that he at least smoked cannabis on the night he died. Another dig at the family

Nevertheless, his mother is still insisting that her son died from a previously undetected heart condition that has plagued the family.

Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships. Civil partnerships as if they are supposed to hold supernatural powers over breakdowns in marriage. Another dig and lack of respect for those who have taken part in civil partnerships.

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately’s last night raise troubling questions about what happened.

Nothing dubious about a person dying because of a medical condition.

It is important that the truth comes out about the exact circumstances of his strange and lonely death. Nothing strange about dying in your sleep with loved ones close by.

As a gay rights champion, I am sure he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine. He did set an example and his lifestyle had nothing to do with his death.

For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see. There is no difference and his life style was no dangerous as if he could have prevented a natural cause of death.

Jan Moir’s comments clearly shows how far the gutter press are prepared lie to create a sensational story line. We just cannot trust what the news media is reporting these days.  News worthy stories get more attention if negative untruths are added. This reporter does not understand or lacks sensitivity.  She could have attacked the negative stereotypes and the false information that society has to stomack every day homophobic propaganda in it’s suttlest form.