David Ryder/Getty ImagesAmazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos claimed he was the target of blackmail by the National Enquirer, exposing a potentially damaging scandal involving nude pictures of himself Thursday evening — a wild story complete with international relations, extortion, hacking, nude selfies, and more.

　　In a personal blog post published on Medium titled, “No thank you, Mr. Pecker,” Bezos claimed that AMI, the publisher of tabloid publication The National Enquirer, had blackmailed him into dropping an investigation into the company’s catch-and-kill practice, a strategy where a publication agrees to buy a story and then kills it later as a favor to a friend.

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　　AMI’s David Pecker, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, was previously reported to have employed the tactic on a story involving former Playboy model Karen McDougal in order to silence negative news that would have impacted Trump’s presidential campaign, according to a CNN report. Bezos claimed that if he dropped the story, then AMI would not publish the pictures they had obtained of him and his partner Lauren Sanchez.

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　　“Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten,” Bezos wrote. Bezos shared details of his email correspondences with