The National Enquirer is up for sale after Jeff Bezos scandal
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has revealed emails sent to him by the National Enquirer, owned by American Media, which threatened to release highly personal nude photos if he didn’t call off an investigation into the publisher. Trial attorney Misty Marris with more.
The National Enquirer, a touchstone of American tabloids, is up for sale, the publisher said on Thursday.
American Media Inc. announced in a statement that it decided to sell the National Enquirer, alongside its other tabloids, including the Globe and National Examiner brands.
"We have been keenly focused on leveraging the popularity of our celebrity glossy, teen and active lifestyle brands while developing new and robust platforms including broadcast and audio programming, and a live events business, that now deliver significant revenue streams," said American Media President and CEO David J. Pecker -- a longtime friend of President Trump -- said in the statement. "Because of this focus, we feel the future opportunities with the tabloids can be best exploited by a different ownership."
AMI is reportedly in talks to sell the tabloid to Ronald W. Burkle, a California billionaire, according to the New York Times, citing sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Burkle is a Democratic donor with close ties to former President Bill Clinton.
Burkle, the Times reported, specializes in buying distressed companies and selling them at a profit, or rebuilding them to increase their value. The Enquirer loses money.
The tabloid has been embroiled in a number of scandals surrounding Trump. AMI allegedly paid a Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 during the 2016 presidential election to buy the exclusive rights to her claims that she had an affair with Trump, and then never published the story, according to Fox News.
And in February, the tabloid came under fire for allegedly trying to extort and blackmail Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who is also the owner of The Washington Post, if he did not publicly acknowledge that AMI’s coverage was not politically motivated.
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Bezos is reportedly sitting down with federal prosecutors in New York in connection with his claims that the Enquirer tried to extort him and his suggestion that Saudi Arabia was behind the story that exposed his extramarital affair.