Jeff Bezos accuses US tabloid of blackmail

Amazon CEO says it threatened to publish risque photos if he did not drop probe into source of leak

Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos says American Media Inc, which owns The National Enquirer, wanted him to stop looking into how his private text messages and photos with his mistress were leaked to the tabloid, for political reasons. He pointed to the publisher's past cooperation with President Donald Trump, as well as its connections to the government of Saudi Arabia. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The publisher of The National Enquirer threatened to make risque and intimate photos of Mr Jeff Bezos and his mistress, Ms Lauren Sanchez, public, says the Amazon CEO. Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos says American Media Inc, which owns The National
Intermediaries of Mr David Pecker (above), chairman of American Media Inc, approached him to stop his investigation, says Mr Jeff Bezos.
The publisher of The National Enquirer threatened to make risque and intimate photos of Mr Jeff Bezos and his mistress, Ms Lauren Sanchez, public, says the Amazon CEO. Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos says American Media Inc, which owns The National
The publisher of The National Enquirer threatened to make risque and intimate photos of Mr Jeff Bezos and his mistress, Ms Lauren Sanchez, public, says the Amazon CEO.

SEATTLE • Mr Jeff Bezos, Amazon's chief executive, has accused the owner of The National Enquirer of trying "extortion and blackmail" to stop his investigation into how his private text messages and photos with his mistress were leaked to the tabloid.

In an extraordinarily personal online post on Thursday, Mr Bezos said intermediaries of Mr David Pecker, chairman of American Media Inc (AMI), the owner of The Enquirer, had approached him to stop his investigation. Mr Bezos said he had been told that if he refused, the publisher would make risque and intimate photos of him and his mistress, Ms Lauren Sanchez, public.

Mr Bezos said AMI had wanted him to stop looking into it for political reasons. He pointed to the publisher's past cooperation with President Donald Trump, as well as its connections to the government of Saudi Arabia.

Mr Bezos owns The Washington Post, which has relentlessly reported on the murder last year of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident.

The Enquirer pushed the multibillionaire into the headlines with its Jan 28 edition, which hit newsstands and supermarket racks on Jan 10.

The tabloid devoted 11 pages to the story of Mr Bezos' affair with Ms Sanchez, a former host of the Fox show So You Think You Can Dance, calling it "the biggest investigation in Enquirer history!"

The article also included amorous text messages that Mr Bezos had sent to Ms Sanchez.

His tying of The Enquirer's motive to politics, Mr Bezos alleged in a post on online publishing platform Medium on Thursday, prompted associates of Mr Pecker to threaten to publish graphic photos it had apparently obtained, as well as more of the steamy text messages.

"Of course I don't want personal photos published, but I also won't participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favours, political attacks and corruption," Mr Bezos wrote of AMI, explaining why he decided to speak out. "I prefer to stand up, roll this log over and see what crawls out."

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Mr Bezos' online post details a stunning and bizarre clash between the world's richest man and the nation's biggest tabloid publisher.

In it, all of the country's obsessions of recent years appear to have collided, from the personal lives of billionaires and sensational tabloid headlines to Mr Trump's fight with the media.

It has also shown that even for one of the world's most powerful tech titans and the owner of one of the country's most influential newspapers, the best means of communications can be a simple blog post.

And, in a time, when Beltway pundits complain that the public has lost its capacity to be shocked, Mr Bezos' post did exactly that.

Amazon declined to comment. AMI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The confrontation began last month when Mr Bezos and his wife MacKenzie announced that they were getting divorced.

The couple, who have been married for 25 years, disclosed their separation just before The Enquirer published the article exposing that Mr Bezos was having an affair with Ms Sanchez, who is also married.

Mr Bezos, who has kept his personal life largely out of the public eye, said in his post that he had then quickly "engaged investigators to learn how those texts were obtained, and to determine the motives for the many unusual actions taken by The Enquirer".

He said he had turned to Mr Gavin de Becker, his long-time private security consultant, for help.

In recent interviews, including with The Daily Beast and The Washington Post, Mr de Becker said he was investigating whether Ms Sanchez's brother, who has said he supports Mr Trump, may have been behind the leak for political reasons.

Those who support the President may have been motivated to move against Mr Bezos since Mr Trump has long criticised the billionaire.

Mr Trump has previously linked The Post and Amazon in critical Twitter posts, once declaring the "Fake Washington Post" a "lobbyist" for Amazon.

Mr de Becker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In Mr Bezos' post on Thursday, he also published several e-mails between Mr de Becker's lawyer Martin Singer, and AMI's lawyer Jon Fine and chief content officer Dylan Howard.

The e-mails detail explicit photos The Enquirer had obtained of Mr Bezos and Ms Sanchez but had not run, and went on to say AMI would not publish the photos if Mr Bezos stopped his investigation and publicly said he did not think the leak had been politically motivated.

In one e-mail that Mr Bezos disclosed, Mr Howard wrote that The Enquirer had obtained photos of Mr Bezos and Ms Sanchez as part of its "news-gathering".

"Nothing I might write here could tell the National Enquirer story as eloquently as their own words," Mr Bezos wrote of releasing the e-mails. He added that any personal embarrassment from the revelations took "a back seat because there's a much more important matter involved here".

"If, in my position, I can't stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?" he wrote.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on February 09, 2019, with the headline Jeff Bezos accuses US tabloid of blackmail. Subscribe