Google's CEO Demanded His Mistress Take Down Her Blog: Source
Eric Schmidt might advocate for making information "even more open and accessible," but not when it comes to his mistresses. We're told the Google CEO's aggressive lawyers brought down ex-girlfriend Kate Bohner's online recovery diary this weekend.
We flagged the blog on Friday, reporting that Bohner had repeatedly mentioned Schmidt in a blog tied to a planned book about her recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, and predicting Schmidt, who is married, wouldn't be thrilled.
Now the site has been removed from Google's Blogspot, where it was hosted.
Bohner removed the site after threats from Schmidt's lawyers this weekend, according to a source close to the situation.
"When a billionaire threatens you, you get in line," this person said.
It made for a frightening weekend for Bohner, and no wonder: Not only is the former CNBC and Forbes journalist trying to come to terms with her sobriety and past addiction, she doesn't appear to be swimming in the money it would take to mount a plausible legal challenge to a powerful and well-connected tech executive worth $4 billion. A public records search indicates her four-month-old pad in Delray Beach, Florida is the latest in a series of apartments and, according to a sign visible on Google Maps Street View, located in a tidy complex of smallish one- and two-bedroom units.
The nuking of the blog seems especially extreme because Schmidt played such a small part in it. The executive did appear in three different posts (see quotes here), across maybe five paragraphs of text. But Bohner's entries were long; the three most recent averaged more than 30 paragraphs each, which was typical.
Yes, there was the tidbit about Schmidt (aka "Dr. Strangelove") giving Bohner an prototype iPhone, and being a "genuinely caring, concerned boyfriend." But almost everything else was about Bohner's yoga, time in a Buddhist temple in Thailand, friends in recovery and past addictive escapades.
If Schmidt is so concerned about his privacy, why not just ask Bohner to stop mentioning him? His extramarital dalliances, including with Bohner, are hardly fresh news any more; the Google chief is rumored either separated, as we've reported previously, or in an open marriage, as our Bohner-blog source insists. The Google CEO should be more concerned about the release of any fresh details about his sex life. Concerned, that is, assuming he won't take his own advice and avoid having embarrassing secrets in the first place.
Bohner's blog and book project seemed to have really inspired the ex-addict. Her entries were long, but also formed a potential lifeline for other addicts. In other words, they had merit aside from the bits on Eric "Not the Center of the World" Schmidt. So it's too bad they'll be gone. You can read them for a bit longer; they're here, on a Web caching server provided, as fate would have it, by Schmidt's company.