Amazon's Jeff Bezos Claims He's Being Extorted by National Enquirer

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has released an open letter in response to an alleged extortion attempt by the National Enquirer and its parent company American Media.

The tabloid magazine released an investigation into Bezos‘ relationship with Lauren Sanchez (pictured in the gallery alongside Bezos and ex-husband Patrick Whitesell) back in January. He launched an investigation into how private text messages between him and Lauren were obtained by the magazine and “to determine the motives for the many unusual actions taken by the Enquirer.”

Now, the magazine says it has Bezos‘ private and intimate photos, including a “below the belt selfie” and revealing photos of Sanchez.

“They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didn’t stop our investigation,” Bezos wrote in his blog post on Medium.com. “My lawyers argued that AMI has no right to publish photos since any person holds the copyright to their own photos, and since the photos in themselves don’t add anything newsworthy. AMI’s claim of newsworthiness is that the photos are necessary to show Amazon shareholders that my business judgment is terrible.”

In his post, Bezos explained why he is speaking out against the Enquirer and American Media.

“Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because there’s a much more important matter involved here. If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?” he said.

You can read the full post on Medium.com.