GEELONG’S HOWARD IN BEZOS BLACKMAIL CLAIM:
Amazon boss takes swipe at Geelong’s Dylan Howard
THE world’s richest man Jeff Bezos has taken an extraordinary public swipe at New York-based Geelong tabloid editor Dylan Howard, publishing a series of graphic sexual emails he says were an attempt to blackmail him. Contained in the emails Bezos says were sent by the controversial National Enquirer chief, are detailed descriptions of nude selfies between the Amazon founder and his mistress, Lauren Sanchez. Howard is a senior executive at media company AMI and Bezos claims the threats were a bid to stop an investigation into how private texts between himself and Sanchez came to be published in the Enquirer last month. Howard is no stranger to scandal, having moved from Victoria to build a career in the US after he lost his job with Channel 7 in 2008 over stolen AFL medical records during the drugs in sport controversy. He has also been implicated in the Harvey Weinstein cover-up, accused of giving the movie mogul information about complaints of sexual harassment from actress Rose McGowan. The magazine under his stewardship is also accused of practicing “catch and kill”, where it would buy up exclusive stories in order not to run them to protect allies of the media group’s owner, David Pecker. Howard has denied those claims.
In a post on the website Medium, Bezos publishes in full the emails which graphically detail sexually explicit photos between Bezos and his mistress, noting the married father-of-four was wearing his wedding ring.
“Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten”, Bezos writes.
Howard and AMI have been approached for comment.
Bezos wrote that the National Enquirer’s parent company, AMI, tried to get him to agree to a deal not to publish the explicit photos, and that in return he would have to make a public statement saying there was no political motivation in the Enquirer’s pursuit of him.
In the email published by Bezos, Howard explains that “in the interests of expediating (sic) this situation”, he wants to “describe to you the photos obtained during our newsgathering.
“In addition to the ‘below the belt selfie — otherwise colloquially known as a ‘d--- pick’ — The Enquirer obtained a further nine images,” Howard writes.
He then goes on in graphic detail to describe the series of photos of Bezos and his lover.
“It would give no editor pleasure to send this email. I hope common sense can prevail — and quickly,” Howard writes.
Bezos says that he wanted to post the emails because as the self-made, world’s richest man and owner of The Washington Post newspaper, he enjoys a position of power. “If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can? (On that point, numerous people have contacted our investigation team about their similar experiences with AMI, and how they needed to capitulate because, for example, their livelihoods were at stake),” he writes. “In the AMI letters I’m making public, you will see the precise details of their extortionate proposal: They will publish the personal photos unless (investigator) Gavin de Becker and I make the specific false public statement to the press that we ‘have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces’.”