Jeff Bezos is accusing David Pecker, owner of National Enquirer parent company AMI, of blackmailing him over nude photos.

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Jeff Bezos says National Enquirer owner blackmailed him over nude photos

The Twitter jokes came fast.

 

Kris Seavers

IRL

Posted on Feb 8, 2019   Updated on May 20, 2021, 7:39 pm CDT

Jeff Bezos on Thursday published a Medium post alleging that David Pecker, owner of National Enquirer parent company AMI, attempted to extort and blackmail the Amazon CEO with the threat of publishing his nude photos.

In the personal blog post titled “No thank you, Mr. Pecker,” Bezos claimed that threats lodged against him included that the National Enquirer would publish of nude photos of him, plus revealing photos of the woman with whom he was having an affair. The National Enquirer broke the story about Bezos’ affair with Lauren Sanchez, after which Bezos announced he and his wife would be getting a divorce.

Allegedly, in exchange for not publishing the photos, Bezos was to make a public statement that the investigation into his personal affairs by the National Enquirer’s parent company American Media Inc. was not “politically motivated or influenced by political forces.” Bezos had hired security consultant Gavin de Becker to privately investigate the methods AMI used to acquire his text messages exposing an affair.

AMI, meanwhile, is tangled in legal drama with President Donald Trump over claims the publication killed a story about the president’s alleged affair in exchange for money. As Bezos wrote:

In the AMI letters I’m making public, you will see the precise details of their extortionate proposal: They will publish the personal photos unless Gavin de Becker and I make the specific false public statement to the press that we “have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces.”

Bezos’ blog post included an email from Dylan Howard, the chief content officer of AMI, to de Becker with descriptions of the nude photos of Bezos that the company claimed to have.

Given the salacious details of the billionaire’s post—and the inescapable fact that men named Pecker and de Becker are involved in a controversy regarding Bezos’ nudes—Twitter was immediately alight with jokes about the ordeal.

https://twitter.com/videodante/status/1093661508930654208

https://twitter.com/Dictionarycom/status/1093657699022237696

https://twitter.com/nick_d_laughlin/status/1093654729383661569

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H/T the Verge

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*First Published: Feb 8, 2019, 3:32 am CST