Shortly before they both invested in Radar Magazine, Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein teamed up to make a totally different media acquisition. As part of a larger collective of billionaires, millionaires and other media mavens, the deviant duo tried to buy up New York Magazine. Why? To get its nose out of their business…
Harvey Weinstein wasn’t the only suspect investor to stump up funds for Radar. Jeffrey Epstein whipped out his chequebook too. But what possible reason could a notoriously secretive billionaire with myriad ties to high society and a rumoured penchant for sex with young girls have for wanting to own a stake in a celebrity gossip magazine?
Ever since it became engulfed in hush money scandals and attempted blackmail plots, the National Enquirer has caused no end of problems for its parent company American Media, Inc. But now it looks as though the embattled AMI is going to have to fight on another front too. Why? Because the mysterious death of a rather notorious criminal has got people sniffing around his financial history. And that might bring AMI a whole new world of trouble…
With Michael Cohen headed to the Big House and Roger Stone now in cuffs, we thought it was high time we revisited our series on the National Enquirer to catch up with some of our old favourites and see how they’re all getting on. Here’s three more tales of tawdry tabloid gossip that have somehow turned into internationally significant affairs…
Russian interference. Piss-tape kompromat. Montenegrin fake news factories. Shadowy billionaires on both sides of the political divide trying to ignite a culture war. There’s been one hell of an elaborate backstory contrived to explain the shock result of the 2016 US election, but a look through the lens of the National Enquirer suggests that some of it may have been a little more straightforward.
The criminal underworld of New York, the closed corridors of Washington, the magazine industry of Florida. They’re all very interesting – no question about that – but these aren’t regular people we’ve been talking about here. For the National Enquirer to cut any sway with millions of average American Joes, things would have to change. They’d have to go corporate. Which is where American Media, Inc. comes into play.
While mob boss Frank Costello gave the National Enquirer a connection to the less-reputable elements of society, in order to become a truly powerful publication it would need someone to introduce the Enquirer to the established corridors of power. Someone with the ear of a senator, an attorney general, a president. Which is exactly what it had in the rather lumpy shape of Roy Cohn.
Our story starts with American Media Inc’s oldest and most notorious title: the National Enquirer. As the industry’s most sensational scandal rag, the Enquirer is often blamed for setting the grim tone of modern celebrity reporting – but how did it become so influential? And, more importantly, how did the Enquirer’s ties to a botched Mafia hit-job in 1950s New York end up causing a tabloid boom in 1970s small-town Florida?
In the year since he was elected president, Donald Trump has suffered an absolutely astonishing amount of setbacks and scandals, yet nothing seems to have landed a critical blow. But there is one incident that might still cause the whole thing to collapse. It was barely perceptible at the time, but as soon as you start tugging at the thread, a huge story starts to unravel. One that’s been sixty years in the making and deals with one of the strangest forces in US politics today: the story of American Media, Inc.
Unlike the rest of us gullible fools who thought that Brad and Angelina would be together forever, the National Enquirer knew what was up. Ever since the day they married, the Enquirer has been telling us that Brangelina’s marriage was over – for at least two years now. Well done, guys! Looks like you called it!