Publishers of the National Enquirer promised to pay a longtime girlfriend of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for the story of her affair – and then suppressed the story after announcing a multimillion dollar deal with the governor, the Los Angeles Times is reporting.
In August 2003, just days after Schwarzenegger announced he was running for governor of California, Enquirer publishers American Media Inc. (AMI) offered Gigi Goyette of Malibu $20,000 for exclusive rights to her story, and then never interviewed her or published her story.
Less than a week after AMI signed a contract with Goyette, the company signed the deal with Schwarzenegger, for at least $5 million. During his campaign for governor, the company published a 120-page magazine puff piece on Schwarzenegger as the poster-boy for the American dream.
Long before he was governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s personal life was fodder for supermarket tabloids like the National Enquirer. So it was strange, to say the least, that when he decided to run for office, Schwarzenegger suddenly announced that he’d signed the AMI deal.
Cynics – especially jaded film industry types familiar with the seamier, unreported aspects of Schwarzenegger’s personal life – were suspicious of the multimillion dollar deal between Schwarzenegger and his long-time tormenters, especially since it was publicized as a deal between Arnold and AMI’s line of muscle and fitness magazines, for which the former bodybuilder was supposedly editing an occasional column.
It was rumored that the structure of the AMI deal was actually inverse to the way it was being reported – that in fact Schwarzenegger had bought the company in order to silence the tabloids. If there is any truth to these rumors, it has yet to come to light.
Recently, Schwarzenegger was forced to cancel the deal because of charges he had a conflict of interest between the magazine’s advertisers in supplement industry which are subject to regulation by the state.
American Media’s contracts with Goyette and Mora, both titled “Confidentiality Agreement,” are two pages long and never expire; they bind the two women “in perpetuity.”
Goyette’s agreement states that she is not to disclose “conversations with Schwarzenegger, her interactions with Schwarzenegger or anything else relating in any way to any relationship [she] ever had with Schwarzenegger,” except to American Media.
