The National Enquirer Paid Lauren Sanchez’s Brother $200K For Texts

The National Enquirer isn’t just a tabloid with insane gossip. They have been known many times — in a storied history — to get real scoops. They’re like the original TMZ. The publication is still sleazy for a variety of reasons. For starters, they have been known to shut down stories especially if the President of the United States pays enough money to have the story canceled. Secondly, they pay their sources. In the journalistic world, the exchange of payment is a huge no-no. Hence, the word sleazy.

The latest endeavor by the publication to uncover the truth was in regards to billionaire Jeff Bezos  — the Amazon king. Now as powerful as The National Enquirer is, there’s no way it could try to scheme out a story about Bezos and his new girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez. They tried anyway. As it’s been previously reported Lauren’s brother, Michael Sanchez ratted out his sister with private text messages between the mogul and the former anchor. It has now been revealed that Michael was reportedly paid $200,000 for his information against his sister and Bezos. We should add that when the story broke, Michael initially denied having any part in the story.

Earlier last month, Michael told the Washington Post that “his priorities are to protect his sister’s relationship with Bezos and ‘to clear my name by telling the truth.'” The story gets muddier because Michael is a pro-Donald Trump supporter, and as we know Trump hates Bezos with a passion. According to Page Six, Michael had been in touch with the National Enquirer since last October. The tabloid also tried to blackmail Bezos in exchange for the text messages that Michael obtained for them not to be revealed. However, Bezos fought back by posting a blog in Medium saying that he didn’t just stand up to the publishers of National Enquirer (AMI) just because he could, but more so to expose that so many others that have been targeted before cannot.

“Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because there’s a much more important matter involved here,” Bezos wrote. “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.)”

According to news outlets, Lauren has since cut off all communication with her brother Michael.