Los Angeles- David Pecker – the supermarket tabloid publisher who made a deal two years ago with Arnold Schwarzenegger worth up to $8.1 million – has been spending additional cash amounts to suppress potential embarrassments to the California governor.
In was revealed last month that Pecker paid $20,000 for the silence of a woman who allegedly had an affair with the former bodybuilder, plus $1,000 to the woman’s friend.
Yesterday, The Los Angeles Times reported that Pecker also bought a 1983 Playboy video, “Carnival in Rio,” hosted by Schwarzenegger, who in one scene dances with three women in sequined thongs and bikini tops.
“At one point, he grabs a dancer’s buttocks; she immediately clasps his wrists and pushes his hands away,” the Times reported.
“You know something,” Schwarzenegger tells the camera. “After watching the [dancers] shake it, I can absolutely understand why Brazil is totally devoted to my favorite body part – the ass.”
The newspaper has seen copies of two contracts Pecker’s American Media signed in 2003 with Thomas Wells of Los Angeles. In the first, Wells agreed, for $500, to “provide AMI with information regarding the Arnold Schwarzenegger tape.” In the second, Wells agreed, for $1,500, to hand over his copy of the video and never again talk about it.
Pecker – who publishes The National Enquirer, Star magazine and The Globe – may have been unaware that copies of the video were already being sold on the Internet.
Just a few weeks before, the Austrian action hero had met with Pecker in Schwarzenegger’s Santa Monica office to discuss the deal that made the future governor executive editor of Flex and Muscle & Fitness, two of Pecker’s American Media magazines.
American Media had already paid $20,000 to Gigi Goyette, who had a seven-year affair with Schwarzenegger, according to a 2001 National Enquirer story. Goyette was bought off just two days after Schwarzenegger announced he was running for governor. Goyette’s pal, Judy Mora, signed a similar deal for her silence for $1,000.
“Pecker wanted to protect Arnold,” an American Media source told the Times. “When we had embarrassing information about Arnold, we were to buy it up off the market.”
Pecker had no comment yesterday.