The bizarre years-long drama behind the story of Jeff Bezos’ secret extramarital relationship is about to get even weirder. A shady figure affiliated with the National Enquirer claims in court that one of Hollywood’s most powerful players provided the supermarket tabloid with the sordid details of the affair.
After Bezos announced in 2018 he was separating from Mackenzie Bezos, his wife of 25 years, the National Enquirer revealed the world’s richest man was having an affair with Lauren Sanchez, a southern California-based television host and pilot. The sleazy supermarket tabloid’s series on the affair—which included racy text messages and suggestive photos between Bezos and Sanchez—set off a bizarre and sprawling public hunt for the source or sources of the information, roping in Sanchez’s now-estranged brother Michael Sanchez, top executives at Enquirer parent company American Media Inc., and even the Saudi government.
Now, Nikolaos Tzima Hatziefstathiou, a journalist with a strange and disturbing criminal history who reported the story with the National Enquirer and AMI (since rebranded as “A360 Media”), is claiming one major source of the information was Lauren Sanchez’s then-husband, William Morris Endeavor executive Patrick Whitesell.
Hatziefstathiou’s allegations are part of a defamation lawsuit Michael Sanchez brought this year against AMI, claiming that the tabloid media company lied when it outed him as the sole source of information about the Bezos affair.
In an affidavit filed by Michael Sanchez’s legal team, Hatziefstathiou claimed then-AMI-senior vice president Dylan Howard assigned him to look into Bezos’ affair after he was told about the relationship by Whitesell, the executive chairman of Endeavor, one of the most prominent talent agencies in the world.
Hatziefstathiou asserted that the affair was a convenient excuse for the Endeavor executive to break off his marriage, but AMI was intent on protecting him as a source.
“Mr. Whitesell discovered the Affair and, by serving as AMI’s secret, undisclosed source, literally turned the Affair into a ‘get out of divorce free card,’ allowing him to leave his wife… through a pre-planned divorce in which he appeared blameless and scandal-free, just months prior to WME’s planned initial public offering,” Hatziefstathiou wrote in the filing.
Representatives for Howard and AMI/A360 did not immediately return requests for comment.
“This is categorically untrue, and unfortunately not the first time we have seen this desperate attempt from Michael Sanchez to perpetuate this odd and tiresome circus,” Patrick Whitesell’s spokesman told The Daily Beast. “The fact that Patrick has been implicated in this bizarre series of lawsuits and incriminations is a direct result of the character of those involved and is completely disconnected from reality. Any…
Read More: Insane Jeff Bezos-National Enquirer Drama Takes a Bizarre New Turn