Tiger Woods was caught in intercourse romp with mistress Mindy Lawton in his Escalade in 2007, years earlier than his extramarital affairs turned public.
Nonetheless, an answer to cease this getting out got here from probably the most unlikely of sources — Nationwide Enquirer honcho David Pecker.
On the stand at Donald Trump’s hush cash trial Thursday, Pecker acknowleged for the primary time shopping for up the photographs then burying them in return for Tiger’s cooperation.
Throughout cross-examination by Trump’s attorneys, Pecker admitted buying pics of the golf icon assembly a girl — now recognized to be Lawton — in a church car parking zone and utilizing them as leverage to persuade him to look on the duvet of Males’s Health, one other title within the American Media Inc. publishing home the place he was CEO.
The golf world was mystified by the ensuing 12-page cowl story in Males’s Health. Contained in the version Woods shared his train and weight-reduction plan routine — and talked in glowing phrases about his relationship with then-wife Elin Nordegren.
“It was a complete shakedown,” a member of Woods’ internal circle instructed The Put up. “He was completely blackmailed, however what may he do? He needed to play ball. He didn’t have every other alternative.”
On the time the photographs had been taken, Nordegren was within the closing trimester of being pregnant with their daughter, Sam Alexis. Woods, then 32-years-old, loved a squeaky clear public persona, and feared that an extramarital affair may tarnish his public picture — and destroy his marriage.
“Tiger would ordinarily have had nothing to do with Males’s Health,” says the insider. “He solely spoke to a handful of trusted journalists. However the Enquirer had him over a barrel. He hated it, and I do know it burdened him out, however he did what he needed to do.”
Not everybody was glad concerning the deal. Neal Bulton, then the editor-in-chief of Males’s Health, stop when he realized about it.
“David Pecker knew about Tiger Woods’ infidelity a very long time in the past,” Boulton instructed The Put up the next 12 months. “He traded silence for a Males’s Health cowl.”
“We had been going to [do a quid pro quo with] America’s favourite sports activities star, simply to get his title on the duvet of {a magazine},” Boulton continued. “That was an excessive amount of for me. That’s once I high-tailed it out of there.”
On the time, Pecker denied the allegations.
“It’s completely not true,” he instructed The Put up in 2009. “[Boulton] is a disgruntled former worker.”
However Pecker’s sworn testimony within the Trump trial contradicted his earlier denials. As the previous President appeared on, Pecker testified his “catch and kill” operations for A-listers like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Wahlberg, and Woods.
Now 72, Pecker admitted AMI spent “tons of of 1000’s of {dollars}” shopping for up damaging tales which it then by no means ran.
A rep for Woods didn’t reply to The Put up’s request for remark.
Finally, the golfer’s reprieve was quick lived. Two years later, over Thanksgiving weekend 2009, The Enquirer ran a canopy story about Woods.
The banner headline learn “Tiger Woods Dishonest Scandal” and the story breathlessly detailed woods’ months-long affair with New York Metropolis nightclub hostess Rachel Uchitel.
The difficulty ran images of Uchitel checking into the identical resort as Woods in the course of the Australian Masters. She was quoted as telling a buddy, “It’s Tiger Woods! I don’t care about his spouse! We’re in love!”
The story triggered Woods’ beautiful fall from grace — that very weekend Nordegren chased him out of their household house in Florida swinging one in every of his golf golf equipment and smashing up his automobile home windows as he tried to flee.
Then the floodgates opened and dozens extra ladies revealed their affairs with the golf nice. He and Nordegren went by a really public divorce which reportedly price him greater than $100 million.
It’s not misplaced on the golfer that the Nationwide Enquirer finally led to his demise, regardless of his cooperation on the Males’s Well being cowl.
“He all the time mentioned that they had been all snakes,” says the Woods insider. “They promised to guard him, however that solely went thus far. Once they had the prospect, they ran the story of his dishonest anyway. They actually f—d him ultimately.”
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