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London - Actor George Clooney on Friday rejected an apology from Britain's Daily Mail, after he accused it of fabricating a story about his future mother-in-law.
"There is one constant when a person or company is caught doing something wrong," he wrote in a statement on USA Today.
"The coverup is always worse."
The British tabloid published a story last week in which it claimed that the mother of his fiancé, Amal Alamuddin, opposed the marriage and wanted her daughter to marry into her Islamic Druze sect.
The paper quoted a "friend of the family" as saying that Alamuddin's mother thought she could "do better" than Clooney.
Clooney then accused the paper of making the story up and potentially inciting religious violence, saying his future mother-in-law was not even a Druze.
In response, the paper issued a rare apology to Clooney, in which it said the story had been "supplied in good faith by a reputable and trusted freelance journalist".
On Friday, Clooney wrote: "In the apology, managing editor Charles Garside claims that the article was 'not a fabrication,' but 'based the story on conversations with senior members of the Lebanese community.' "The problem is that none of that is true," he continued.
"The original story never cites that source, but instead goes out of its way to insist on four different occasions that 'a family friend spoke directly to the Mail'.
"A 'family friend' was the source. So either they were lying originally or they're lying now.
"What separates this from all of the ridiculous things the Mail makes up is that now, by their own admission, it can be proved to be a lie.
"In fact, a premeditated lie," he wrote. "So I thank the Mail for its apology.
"Not that I would ever accept it, but because in doing so they've exposed themselves as the worst kind of tabloid."
His scathing response came at the same time as reports that another Hollywood star, Angelina Jolie, was also suing the paper over a video it published this week online of her allegedly taking heroin in the 1990s. The Times reported that the actress regarded the video, allegedly filmed by drug dealer Franklin Meyer, as a gross violation of her privacy.
