RADAR TARGETS HIT ON BACKERS
DID Radar magazine's financial backers Mort Zuckerman and Jeffrey Epstein pull the plug on the scrappy mag because of pressure from their ultra-wealthy friends? Media insiders claim the glossy was canned after Radar ignored repeated warnings not to write about their patrons' powerful pals.
Over the last year, our sources claim, both Zuckerman and Epstein were besieged by calls from power players distressed over Radar's snarky coverage of them, including Hollywood's Mike Ovitz, American Media honcho David Pecker and secretive supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle. All three personally lobbied Zuckerman and Epstein to quash salacious stories, insiders claim.
One media source tells us: "Ron Burkle's lawyer, Marty Singer, threatened to sue them. And Burkle, who is a major investor in Barnes & Noble, had one of the biggest magazine distributors in the country call to tell them it wouldn't be in their best interest to write about Burkle after they reported a story about him hosting Michael Jackson at his house. Bill Clinton [a friend of Burkle and also Epstein] also called [Epstein] and demanded they not write about him and Jackson. They still did." Singer confirmed the legal threats against Radar to PAGE SIX and suggested there may be more litigation in the works.
One Radar staffer offered an outrageous conspiracy scenario: "The theory going around is that the Scientologists put the fear of Xenu [an evil space alien in the Scientology creed] into [Zuckerman and Epstein]. Scientologists have been digging into Epstein's and Zuckerman's private lives, and have thick files on both of them. Who knows what's in them?" Earlier this year, Radar published a scathing cover story about Tom Cruise and Scientology. A rep for the Church of Scientology dismissed the account as "a complete fabrication."
One power player who was left off the hook by Radar's shutdown was ICM boss Jeff Berg, who, insiders say, began calling [Zuckerman] after hearing he'd been pegged as the "most ineffective agent in Hollywood" in an upcoming cover story. The story was slated for the upcoming issue, which has been nixed.
A rep for Pecker tells us: "[Radar editor] Maer Roshan's a very talented guy and we wish him luck, but [Pecker] never made any calls about Radar." Ovitz's reps called the allegations "preposterous." Berg denies calling Zuckerman. Reps for Epstein, Zuckerman, Clinton and Burkle didn't return calls.