Personal Life
Blunt says that he has become closer to his family since his musical success. His father manages his finances and his mother arranged the purchase of his principal residence in Ibiza, where Blunt has holidayed since he was a teenager. Blunt also owns a châlet in the Swiss town of Verbier, which he purchased in February 2007, and he was named "godfather" of one of the town's new ski lifts.
Blunt was instrumental in introducing his sister to her eventual husband after offering her for "sale" on eBay. She was having difficulty obtaining transport to a funeral in Ireland, and Blunt listed her as a "damsel in distress". A person responded saying his friend had a helicopter his sister could charter, but it turned out he was in Sweden and she did not attend the funeral. The respondent suggested she still meet up with the helicopter owner, Guy Harrison, and they began a relationship and eventually married.
The musician's private life has been the subject of significant commentary, particularly in the tabloid press. Blunt himself has found the degree of interest in his personal life to be bizarre, stating that "fame and celebrity is something that other people have constructed that I'm not really party to".
On 8 February 2012, Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing a number of victims of the News International phone hacking affair, informed the High Court that Blunt was one of six alleged victims who had filed for damages in new civil cases.
On 10 November 2012, The Daily Telegraph reported that Blunt has deposited more than £2 million in the offshore tax haven Jersey and registered the account at his parents' British address. Previously he has denied being a tax exile. Blunt responded on Twitter, "I have an account at HSBC Jersey which has always been declared to HMRC, and I pay my taxes. Witch-hunt."
Read more about this topic: James Blunt
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