“Brooklyn Nine-Nine” star Terry Crews is the latest person to say that National Enquirer parent company American Media Inc. once tried to “silence” him by threatening to release a damaging story about him.
“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 in a tweet on Friday. “I called their bluff by releasing their threats online. They blinked.”
Crews’ tweet linked to a news story in which Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the company tried to blackmail him by threatening to release private photos that he had exchanged with a former girlfriend.
On Thursday afternoon, Bezos published a lengthy Medium post where he shared several emails that he and his security chief Gavin de Becker received from AMI officials, which he said were designed to blackmail him into dropping an investigation he launched into how the National Enquirer got hold of intimate text messages and photos of him and Lauren Sanchez.
Shortly after Bezos’s post, journalist Ronan Farrow said that he and “at least one other prominent journalist involved in breaking stories about the National Enquirer’s arrangement with Trump” had also received blackmail attempts from AMI.
Crews named WME in a December 2017 sexual assault lawsuit after publicly accusing Venit, a then-agent at the company, of groping him at a party.
IMG, a marketing subsidiary of WME parent Endeavor, has represented AMI on licensing deals for several years, an AMI spokesman told The Daily Beast last summer.
Later that month, he referenced the fake story from AMI in a tweet.
“The same guy who runs [Radar Online] and [National Enquirer] who threatened me with the false prostitute story 1 day after my [‘Good Morning America] interview now accused of SEXUAL MISCONDUCT,” Crews wrote, referencing AMI chief content officer Dylan Howard. “ABUSERS PROTECT ABUSERS.”
A representative for AMI did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
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.
I called their bluff by releasing their threats online. They blinked. https://t.co/S6lMZ5K6Tb
— Terry Crews (@terrycrews) February 8, 2019
The same guy who runs @radar_online and @NatEnquirer who threatened me with the false prostitute story 1 day after my @GMA interview now accused of SEXUAL MISCONDUCT.
ABUSERS PROTECT ABUSERS. https://t.co/7RMw26sz9w
— Terry Crews (@terrycrews) December 5, 2017