Report: Carson Business Manager Fed Enquirer Oprah Info
[su_gootxttop]
The Daily Mail reports that Armstrong Williams, Ben Carson’s business manager, received six figures during the time he fed stories about Oprah Winfrey to the National Enquirer.
‘My days of working with the National Enquirer were some of the most enjoyable days of my life. We had an honorable relationship, very professional with a lot of trust on both sides,’ Williams told Daily Mail Online.
‘I have done a lot of things in my life,’ Williams added. ‘But I never sold the National Enquirer stories. Yes, I received money from them, but not for selling stories.
‘I worked with them in the ’80s and early ’90s. I have had no relationship with them since the late 1990s.’
However former staff members at the tabloid, which has changed ownership since Williams worked with it, disputed his recollection
A former editor told Daily Mail Online, ‘They weren’t all stories that put Oprah in a bad light, but certainly some of them had that effect.’
And Winfrey herself was so upset with the Enquirer stories that she labeled the magazine ‘verbal pornography,’ and became so paranoid about the tabloids that she told employees they must never mention her name outside her Chicago office.
…for at least five years Williams supplemented his income with the stories to the Enquirer about Oprah and [Steadman] Graham, his partner in a public relations company called the Graham Williams Group, former employees at the magazine said.
At the time, Oprah Winfrey was among the hottest properties for the supermarket tabloids which regularly reported on her stormy relationship with Graham and her constant fight to get thin.
The tabloids also speculated on both Graham’s and Winfrey’s sexuality, concentrating on the close friendship between Winfrey and Gayle King, now an anchor on CBS This Morning.
A former staffer at the magazine told Daily Mail Online: ‘I would say we gave Armstrong Williams a sum in the six figures over the years.’
The relationship with the Enquirer ended after Williams and Graham had a falling-out, revealed an editor. The two later patched up their relationship. Williams told Daily Mail Online that they no longer have a business relationship but remain friends.
[su_gootxtbelow]
[su_facebook]
