Jeff Bezos has accused The National Enquirer of extortion, claiming the tabloid leveraged the Amazon CEO's nude photos in hopes of thwarting his investigation into the company's motives. Shortly after Bezos unleashed news of the blackmail scheme, acclaimed journalist Ronan Farrow similarly alleged that he had faced extortion threats from the media company. And now, Terry Crews has come forward to accuse American Media, Inc.of trying to intimidate him to make him drop his lawsuit against WME agent Adam Venit.
"This same company, AMI, tried to silence me in my lawsuit against WME and Adam Venit by fabricating stories of me with prostitutes—and even went so far as creating fake receipts," Crews wrote on Twitter.
Crews sued WME and Adam Venit after alleging that the former agent groped him at a party in 2016. The two parties settled in 2018 and Venit resigned from the company shortly after that. Despite Crews publicly accepting Venit's apology, the actor is now alleging that AMI threatened to publish fabricated accounts of Crews' affiliation with prostitutes.
In addition to Crews' accusations, Ronan Farrow has alleged that the media company targeted him while he was compiling an investigative report into AMI's "catch and kill" policy. The policy entails the company purchasing certain stories and withholding them from being published to ensure another publication does not obtain them.
Jeff Bezos has announced that he's opened a personally-funded investigation to determine how the National Enquirer obtained the explicit text messages he exchanged with his mistress, Lauren Sánchez. In addition to claiming that the story may have been "politically motivated" on account of President Donald Trump's deep-seated hatred of the Amazon CEO, Bezos then alleged that AMI threatened to release his nude photos should he continue investigating.
As a result of the mounting allegations, Jerry George, a former National Enquirer editor told CNN that he believes David Pecker, who sits at the helm of the tabloid, "may end up doing time."
