Amazon.com founder, Jeff Bezos, has accused National Enquirer owner, David Pecker, of trying to blackmail him over lewd pictures.
The world’s richest man said the magazine’s parent company, American Media Inc (AMI), wanted him to drop an investigation into how it obtained his private messages.
Mr Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, said last month they were getting divorced.
Their announcement came just before the National Enquirer carried reports about his extramarital affair with former TV host, Lauren Sanchez.
In a Medium blog post on Thursday, Bezos posted an email he said had been sent to his intermediaries by AMI’s representatives threatening to publish “intimate photos” of him Bezos and Sanchez.
The billionaire, who also owns the Washington Post, said AMI had wanted him to make a “false public statement” that the National Enquirer’s coverage of him and his mistress was not politically motivated.
According to emails included b Bezos in his blog, an AMI lawyer proposed on Wednesday that the photos would not be published in return for a public statement “affirming that [Bezos and his team] have no knowledge or basis” to suspect such a motive.
“Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail,” wrote Mr Bezos, “I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten.”
Early in the blog post, Mr Bezos mentions AMI’s links to President Donald Trump.
Bezos said his ownership of the Washington Post was a “complexifier” for him because he had made enemies of “certain powerful people”, including President Donald Trump, who is a friend of Mr Pecker.
The Amazon boss didn’t try to hide the potential for embarrassment, writing “of course I don’t want personal photos published” and noting what he called “AMI’s long-earned reputation for weaponising journalistic privileges”.
“But,” he continued, “I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favours, political attacks, and corruption. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out.”
