Creator of Amazon, Jeff Bezos has accused the chief executive officer of American Media (AMI), David Pecker, of holding private photos of Bezos hostage.
Yeah, hold on to your seats.
Before we dive into the alleged extortion we need to provide some context.
Back in January Bezos had some “intimate text [sic] messages” published in the National Enquirer. The publisher of that tabloid is, AMI.
Upon the text messages making their way into the public discourse, Bezos says he retained Gavin de Becker to lead an investigation into how the texts were obtained.
A report by The Register also reveals that Bezos had asked de Becker to find out if Pecker and AMI were using the National Enquirer to squash stories about the US President, Donald Trump.
Upon hearing about the private investigation Pecker was reportedly “apoplectic”.
In a Medium post published yesterday titled “No thank you Mr. Pecker“, Bezos claims that AMI is holding photos of the Amazon head hostage in exchange for Bezos and The Washington Post to squash a story accusing AMI of being influenced by political sources.
I’ve written a post about developments with the National Enquirer and its parent company, AMI. You can find it here: https://t.co/G1ykJAPPwy
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 7, 2019
The alleged blackmail dictates that should Bezos and his parties agree to drop any story about the National Enquirer squashing stories for politicians they will ensure the photos never see the light of day.
“A public, mutually-agreed upon acknowledgment from the Bezos Parties, released through a mutually-agreeable news outlet, affirming that they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AM’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces, and an agreement that they will cease referring to such a possibility.“
The real kicker however, is that AMI reserves the right to publish the photos should Bezos not abide by the agreement.
Bezos ain’t standing around holding his, erm
Naturally one would think that having your “below the belt selfie” exposed for the world to see would make a person comply but seemingly, not Bezos.
“Well, that got my attention. But not in the way they likely hoped. Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because there’s a much more important matter involved here,” writes Bezos.
“Be assured, no real journalists ever propose anything like what is happening here: I will not report embarrassing information about you if you do X for me. And if you don’t do X quickly, I will report the embarrassing information.”
The Amazon chief goes on to say that he doesn’t want to have personal photos published but that he won’t participate in AMI’s “well-known practice of blackmail, political favours, political attacks and corruption.”
The National Enquirer, AMI and Pecker are yet to comment on Bezos’ accusations. All we hope is that as the weekend progresses we don’t unwittingly see more of Bezos than we’d like.
That blog post might’ve prodded a very angry bear.
[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]
