American Media Inc. has gotten into one legal scrap after another over the decades from National Enquirer stories on celebrities that triggered libel lawsuits. Nothing, though, quite prepared the company for Jeff Bezos.
The founder of Amazon.com, who also owns the Washington Post, took the highly unusual step Thursday of releasing emails from AMI executives demanding that Bezos call off an investigation he launched to determine how his personal emails to his mistress wound up in the tabloid. In the emails, AMI threatened to release incriminating photos of the tycoon unless he cooperated with the company.
Quid pro quos between AMI and the Hollywood celebrities that it covers are common, which is why Bezos’ decision to fight back is so unusual. Golfer Tiger Woods, for instance, reportedly agreed to pose for the cover for AMI’s Men’s Fitness magazine in exchange for the Enquirer canceling a story about an affair it discovered he was having. Woods' extramarital relationships, however, later became public knowledge, ending his marriage.
“He’s the only one who seems to have the balls to stand up to them,” Stu Zakim, a former AMI spokesman, said in an interview, referring to Bezos. “They outed him. They exposed him, so he took the right approach because he had nothing else to lose. The leverage that they always had is that if you don’t cooperate with us, we are going to publish.”
According to Joshua Kroon, a vice president at Levick, a crisis communications public relations firm, high-profile people caught in predicaments similar to Bezos' tend to hunker down and say as little as possible.
“We advise clients to run to the light, tell your story first, tell it completely,” Kroon said. “Leave no room for that other proverbial shoe to drop.”
For its part, AMI denied blackmailing Bezos but nonetheless said it was going to investigate the claims. A spokesman for the New York-based publisher didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.
Bezos has raised the possibility that AMI colluded with the government of Saudi Arabia, which has been furious about the Post's coverage of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. According to Bloomberg, the Saudi government denies any link with AMI. The publisher wanted Bezos to release a statement indicating that its reporting was free of political considerations.
Bezos’ claims may land AMI in hot water with federal prosecutors who agreed last year not to prosecute the company for its role in paying off former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claims that she had an affair with Donald Trump ahead of the presidential election. Trump denies the claim.
According to the Wall Street Journal, American Media could be subject to federal prosecution if it commits any crimes in the three years after the deal, although it isn’t clear whether AMI committed a crime in its dealings with Bezos.
Otherwise, Bezos may find it difficult to pursue further legal action against AMI. Since the claims made in the Enquirer story are true, he would have to pursue a claim of invasion of privacy rather than libel, which is difficult for public figures to prove.
“The $64 question is whether AMI could make that claim go away on the basis of newsworthiness,” Charles Glasser, a media attorney and an adjunct professor at New York University and the City University of New York, said in an interview. “(Bezos) would have an uphill fight; there is no question about that. People who think he has no recourse at all need to be reminded that Gawker thought the same thing.”
Gawker was forced into bankruptcy and shut down after losing an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan that was settled in 2016 for $31 million.
