Amazon's Jeff Bezos accuses National Enquirer publisher of blackmail

Jeff Bezos.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed on Thursday that the National Enquirer threatened to publish private photos of him and his mistress, Lauren Sanchez, if he didn't stop an investigation into how the publication was earlier able to obtain intimate text messages and photos between the two.

In a Medium post, Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, shared emails sent from top executives with the National Enquirer's parent company, AMI. AMI is led by David Pecker, a longtime friend of President Trump's who would pay for stories about Trump, then never publish them. Bezos said an AMI representative relayed that Pecker was "apoplectic" about his investigation, and soon after, he was verbally told the Enquirer had nude photos of him, and would release those pictures and texts if the investigation continued.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.