I’m not an Elf, says Lord Browne

It has been revealed that Lord Browne, the former BP chief executive, was recently exposed to a fearsome grilling by US lawyers quizzing him about safety lapses in the run-up to the 2005 explosion at the BP-run Texas City oil refinery which killed 15 workers. However, this didn’t rattle Browne as much as questions put to him about his private life.

A transcript of an hour-long deposition back in April was made public yesterday after BP settled a final batch of four claims brought by Brent Coon, the lawyer acting on behalf families and injured workers. During a series of abrupt exchanges about his background, Browne gave his full name as "Edmund John Phillip Browne, the Lord Browne of Madingley", adding: "I am also entitled to this - the address the 'right honourable' and the suffix 'knight'."

Probing Browne's social life, Coon asked him to confirm that he was friends with Elton John, Gwyneth Paltrow and Hugh Grant. Browne replied: "I don't regard those as friends. I have been acquainted with them. I have met them." When pressed, he admitted that he had been a guest of Elton John: "I have been inside his apartment in Venice once."

Browne resigned suddenly as BP boss in May 2007 after it emerged that he had lied to the High Court about his four-year gay relationship with Canadian Jeff Chevalier. He lost his entitlement to a leaving package worth £3.5m and a potential £12m in BP shares, and now works for a private equity firm, Riverstone Holdings.

In the newly-released deposition, Browne confirmed to Brent Coon that he employed a butler and a chauffeur, though he said he never discussed BP with them. When asked about nicknames, Browne said he was aware he had been dubbed the 'Sun King'.

"There was a photograph of me appearing in front of the BP logo, which, when half obscured with a body, looks like a sun with rays," explained the diminutive businessman. Coon then put it to him that far from being known as a 'Sun King', his nickname was actually 'Elf'. That went down badly with the small-of-stature Browne. He said: "I don't believe I have ever heard that referred to me."