American Media

The modern American Media came into being after Generoso Pope Jr., longtime owner of the National Enquirer, died in 1988, and his tabloids came under new ownership. American tabloids began consolidating in 1990, when American Media bought Star from Rupert Murdoch. The purchase of Globe Communications (owner of the Globe and the National Examiner) followed nine years later. Roger Altman, through Evercore Partners, bought a controlling stake in American Media in 1999.

American Media is not to be confused with American Media Distribution, the international news coverage firm. American Media's former corporate headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida, figured prominently in news headlines in late 2001, after an anthrax attack was perpetrated on the company and other media outlets. Since then the corporate headquarters have moved to New York City at 1 Park Avenue in Manhattan, before moving to the Financial District to the former JP Morgan Chase headquarters at 4 New York Plaza. That building was severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy but reopened in February 2013.

AMI continued to expand after it bought Joe Weider's Weider Publications in 2002. Joe Weider continued to manage control of his magazines under AMI's Weider Publications subsidiary until his death in March 2013. Eli Lippman was appointed the Director of Audience Development and subsequently as Director of Digital.

American Media also owned Distribution Services, an in-store magazine merchandising company. In fall 2002, it launched the book-publishing imprint, AMI Books.

Bankruptcy, sale to Chatham Asset Management,

In 2009, American Media was taken over by its bondholders to keep it out of bankruptcy.

In November 2010, American Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to nearly $1 billion in debt, and assets of less than $50,000. Its subsidiary, American Media Operations Inc., listed assets of $100 to $500 million and debt of over $1 billion.

In May 2014, American Media announced a decision to shift the headquarters of the National Enquirer from Florida, where it had been located since 1971, back to New York City, where it originally began as The New York Enquirer in 1926. In August 2014, American Media was acquired by Chatham Asset Management and Omega Charitable Partnership.

In 2015, American Media sold Shape, Natural Health, and Fit Pregnancy to Meredith.

AMI Books

AMI Entertainment Group

Distribution Services, Inc.

Dew Tour

Controversies

Allegation about Trump Tower maid

In late 2015, AMI paid $30,000 to Dino Sajudin, a doorman at Trump Tower, to obtain the rights to his story in which he alleged Donald Trump had an affair in the 1980s that resulted in the birth of a child. Sajudin in April 2018 identified the woman as Trump's former housekeeper. AMI reporters were given the names of the woman and the alleged child, while Sajudin passed a lie detector test when testifying that he had heard the story from others. Shortly after the payment was made, Pecker ordered the reporters to drop the story. In April 2018, AMI chief content officer Dylan Howard denied the story was "spiked" in a so-called "catch and kill" operation, insisting that AMI did not run the story because Sajudin's story lacked credibility. On August 24, 2018, after AMI had released Sajudin from the contract, CNN obtained a copy of it and published excerpts. The contract instructed Sajudin to provide "information regarding Donald Trump's illegitimate child," but did not contain further specifics of Sajudin's story.

In April 2024, Pecker testified in Trump's New York criminal trial how the story was his first "catch-and-kill" target during Trump's campaign, with Sajudin also attempting to claim that the child was a girl. A National Enquirer editor who discovered the allegation originally did not know Sajudin's name, but just as a doorman who had worked at Trump. Cohen was the one who discovered the names of the doorman and the alleged maid. Though Cohen at first claimed the story was not true, the National Enquirer acquired the story for $30,000, which was noticeably higher than the usual $10,000 they paid for stories.

Karen McDougal

In 2016, AMI paid Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for exclusive rights to her allegations of a ten-month affair with Donald Trump—which she claimed happened in 2006–2007, when he was already married to Melania—but AMI never published the story. AMI publicly acknowledged having made the payment after The Wall Street Journal revealed it days before the 2016 presidential election, but AMI denied that its purpose had been to "kill damaging stories about" Trump; instead, AMI claimed it had paid only for "exclusive life rights to any relationship [McDougal] has had with a then-married man" and "two years' worth of her fitness columns and magazine covers." In March 2018, McDougal filed a lawsuit to invalidate the non-disclosure agreement she had with AMI. A month later, AMI settled with McDougal, allowing her to speak about the alleged affair. In August 2018, it was reported that AMI CEO/chairman David Pecker and AMI chief content officer Dylan Howard were granted witness immunity in exchange for their testimony regarding hush money payments made by Donald Trump's then-personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, in an attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election.

On December 12, 2018, the U.S. Attorney's office announced its agreement with AMI. "AMI admitted that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate's presidential campaign," the press release said, so that Karen McDougal wouldn't "publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election. AMI further admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election." As a result of this agreement, AMI did not face prosecution and agreed to provide extensive assistance to prosecutors about the involvement of Trump and other politicians with the company. The same press release also revealed that Michael Cohen had been sentenced to three years in prison for various crimes, including the $150,000 campaign finance violation—the facilitation of the payment to McDougal—to which he pled guilty on August 21, 2018. AMI agreed to pay the Federal Election Commission a $187,500 fine in June 2021.

In April 2024, Pecker testified how he, Howard and Cohen conspired to get the National Enquirer to acquire McDougal's story. Pecker stated that after Howard found out about McDougal's allegation, he sent Howard to California to interview her. During the time Howard met with McDougal, he conversed with Cohen about the situation. Ultimately, McDougal agreed to sell her story to the National Enquirer for $150,000.

Jeff Bezos blackmail

In January 2019, the National Enquirer broke a story about the extramarital affair of Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos with Lauren Sánchez. Bezos began investigating how and why the information had been leaked to the National Enquirer. Trump had long expressed displeasure with Bezos, and Trump's irritation may have increased due to the Washington Post's critical coverage of the murder (and the subsequent cover-up) of one of its reporters, Jamal Khashoggi. This, Bezos suspects, may have been the political motivation for someone to leak his affair to the tabloid.