Inside the sordid history of National Enquirer’s ‘catch and kill’ practice: Tiger, LeBlanc, Schwarzenegger ..Donald Trump's longtime friend, David Pecker, is the former publisher of the National Enquirer. Pecker has testified before a grandf jury
- last year
It sounds like something out of Old Hollywood: A supermarket tabloid gets its hands on a juicy piece of celebrity gossip and buries it so that the celebrity owes them a favor.
But catch and kill, at least at the National Enquirer, was going on as recently as five years ago.
The scheme made headlines days before the 2016 presidential election when the Wall Street Journal revealed the National Enquirer’s parent company, AMI, paid former Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal $150,000 to keep her alleged former affair with Donald Trump quiet during his campaign.
A payoff of $30,000 was also made to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed the real-estate mogul allegedly fathered a child out of wedlock, prosecutors claim.
Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to such schemes (including his lawyer Michael Cohen’s 2018 payment of $130,000 for porn star Stormy Daniels’ silence).
Manhattan prosecutors allege Trump orchestrated the “catch and kill” strategies with Cohen and David Pecker, former CEO of A360 Media, previously known as American Media Inc. (AMI).
But the practice of buying and burying a story as a favor has long been a tabloid technique, former National Enquirer employees told The Post.
It was constant practice to get to a celebrity and tell them you had details of his infidelity or some other down point of his life and career — and say you would hold the story back if he would give an interview,” former National Enquirer roving editor Tony Brenna said.
Brenna likened the story-suppression method to “bartering and trading.”
“It didn’t always work,” he said. “Sometimes what you had [on stars] was better than what they could return. It was also common practice to get one celebrity to rat out another.”
The Enquirer’s former publisher, Gene Pope Jr., who died in 1988, had regularly used the tactic with comedian Bob Hope — a “terrible womanizer” who cooperated for legitimate profiles in exchange for the tabloid not exposing his alleged dalliances, Brenna said.
Pecker, Trump’s longtime friend who took over the Enquirer in 1999, was determined to make himself into a power broker, Brenna said and took catch and kill to another level.
Another former National Enquirer staffer echoed Brenna’s description of the tabloid industry’s underbelly, confirming that “catch and kills” were heavily sought under Peck’s leadership.
“They loved doing them,” the ex-Enquirer reporter told The Post. “But sometimes celebrities won’t play ball.”
By ensnaring a celebrity in a potentially embarrassing spot, the Enquirer, ironically, hoped to gain more “credence” and legitimacy, the former reporter said.
Trump, meanwhile, is far from the only A-lister who brokered deals with AMI to conceal stories that could derail their careers. Here’s an inside look at some of AMI’s biggest “catch and kills”:
But catch and kill, at least at the National Enquirer, was going on as recently as five years ago.
The scheme made headlines days before the 2016 presidential election when the Wall Street Journal revealed the National Enquirer’s parent company, AMI, paid former Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal $150,000 to keep her alleged former affair with Donald Trump quiet during his campaign.
A payoff of $30,000 was also made to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed the real-estate mogul allegedly fathered a child out of wedlock, prosecutors claim.
Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to such schemes (including his lawyer Michael Cohen’s 2018 payment of $130,000 for porn star Stormy Daniels’ silence).
Manhattan prosecutors allege Trump orchestrated the “catch and kill” strategies with Cohen and David Pecker, former CEO of A360 Media, previously known as American Media Inc. (AMI).
But the practice of buying and burying a story as a favor has long been a tabloid technique, former National Enquirer employees told The Post.
It was constant practice to get to a celebrity and tell them you had details of his infidelity or some other down point of his life and career — and say you would hold the story back if he would give an interview,” former National Enquirer roving editor Tony Brenna said.
Brenna likened the story-suppression method to “bartering and trading.”
“It didn’t always work,” he said. “Sometimes what you had [on stars] was better than what they could return. It was also common practice to get one celebrity to rat out another.”
The Enquirer’s former publisher, Gene Pope Jr., who died in 1988, had regularly used the tactic with comedian Bob Hope — a “terrible womanizer” who cooperated for legitimate profiles in exchange for the tabloid not exposing his alleged dalliances, Brenna said.
Pecker, Trump’s longtime friend who took over the Enquirer in 1999, was determined to make himself into a power broker, Brenna said and took catch and kill to another level.
Another former National Enquirer staffer echoed Brenna’s description of the tabloid industry’s underbelly, confirming that “catch and kills” were heavily sought under Peck’s leadership.
“They loved doing them,” the ex-Enquirer reporter told The Post. “But sometimes celebrities won’t play ball.”
By ensnaring a celebrity in a potentially embarrassing spot, the Enquirer, ironically, hoped to gain more “credence” and legitimacy, the former reporter said.
Trump, meanwhile, is far from the only A-lister who brokered deals with AMI to conceal stories that could derail their careers. Here’s an inside look at some of AMI’s biggest “catch and kills”: