Actor Terry Crews is the latest person to speak out against the National Enquirer ‘s owner, saying the company threatened to publish a fake story about him sleeping with prostitutes if he wouldn’t drop his sexual assault lawsuit against a talent agent that represented their company.
Crews became one of the central figures of the #MeT00 movement for his allegation against a high-powered Hollywood agent, who he claimed sexually assaulted him at a party. Many praised Crews for his willingness to come forward and said he gave power to other men who were victims to speak out, but a new report claims that the allegation also made him the target for an apparent blackmail attempt.
As Crews revealed on Friday, the company American Media Inc. made a threat to publish a fake story about Terry sleeping with prostitutes if he didn’t drop the claim against WME Entertainment agent Adam Venit, who Terry said groped him at the event. Venit also represents AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer .
“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,” Crews revealed in a tweet on Friday.
Terry Crews had revealed the correspondence back in 2017, publishing an email from National Enquirer sister publication Radar Online that threatened him with the release of the story, but Crews said that they did not go forward in publishing the story because it was a lie.
1 day after my @GMA interview, @radaronline threatened me w/ a false story abt me hiring 2 hookers at the 2015 Monte Carlo TV Festival.
It never went 2 press because it was a lie.
This was not a coincidence. I told u they were coming 4 me. I also told you I am ready. pic.twitter.com/vqLAUknUiO
— Terry Crews (@terrycrews) November 19, 2017
The claim from Terry Crews came just hours after Amazon found Jeff Bezos released an email from AMI threatening to publish nude photos that had been stolen from his cell phone if he did not issue a statement that the National Enquirer’s story about his extramarital affair was not politically motivated. National Enquirer boss David Pecker had been a close friend of Donald Trump and the publication allegedly helped protect Trump by quashing potentially embarrassing stories about him. Many saw the story about Bezos’s affair as politically motivated due to Trump’s open dislike of Bezos.
Trump ‘directly involved’ in alleged blackmail scheme against Jeff Bezos: Amazon expert https://t.co/5EhequAl77
— Raw Story (@RawStory) February 9, 2019
Bezos wrote in an entry for Medium that the tabloid said it would not publish the lurid photos if Bezos agreed to release a statement saying that the National Enquirer reporting was not politically motivated.
Terry Crews also ignored the alleged threats from the National Enquirer parent company and continued his lawsuit against Adam Venit.
