I get the sense that his response is more about principle and not getting pushed around by some sleazeball hack posing as a journalist than it is about avoiding

I get the sense that his response is more about principle and not getting pushed around by some sleazeball hack posing as a journalist than it is about avoiding personal embarrassment. Bezos is secure in his professional life. Whether or not more pictures come out have little bearing on the outcome of his divorce. The biggest concern here is the reaction of his family and friends. The ones closest to him would probably know about the extortion attempt anyway. This is a guy who is worth $140B. That’s not normal and has likely made relationships difficult for many years. The people he truly cares about, the ones who are close, have already gotten past the thing that makes him completely different from everyone else in the world. Why would they care about something like sexting and nude pics that make him the same as most people in the world? They don’t care. As for everyone else not close to him, I’m sure he learned long ago how to tune out the noise.