Comedian Johnny Vegas has now outdone them all in a perverse way - sending a message to big-paying magazines such as Hello! and OK!, and to their readers - by selling his wedding pics for just £1.

Vegas, whose real name is Michael Pennington, decided to give Viz magazine exclusive rights to see him marry Kitty Donnelly in San Francisco for the princely sum, it emerged yesterday.

A spokesman for Mr Vegas said: "Johnny knew that magazines were interested in getting the wedding picture, so he just thought it would be funny to give them to Viz."

Vegas asked for a fiver for the photographs but was "knocked down" by the Geordie comic.

The couple married in July, five months after Vegas, 31, met Donnelly, 26, who is an interior designer, in a London pub. Vegas, star of the ITV Digital monkey ads, and a successful stand-up comic who came to prominence during the 1997 Edinburgh fringe festival, has described his feelings for his bride as "love at first sight".

Vegas, who comes from St Helens on Merseyside, tried to become a priest before he moved into comedy. Recently he received acclaim for his comedy on BBC Radio Four - Night Class.

Other previous big reported payments for photographs by magazines included £300,000 from OK! to cover the wedding of Westlife's Bryan McFadden and Kerry Katona.