Facebook No. 2 reportedly pushed Daily Mail to drop story about restraining order against her CEO boyfriend

Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg pressured U.K. tabloid Daily Mail to not report on a story about her then-boyfriend, Activision Blizzard Chief Executive Officer Bobby Kotick, reported the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

The story shined a light on an earlier 2014 restraining order against Kotick obtained by a former girlfriend who alleged he harassed her at her home. Sandberg reportedly reached out twice to the Daily Mail digital edition twice to quash the scoop – first in 2016 when they began dating, then in 2019 when the broke up.

The WSJ recounts a coordinated effort in 2016 that included Sandberg, Kotick, employees from Activision and Facebook, outside public-relations advisers and lawyers in both the U.S. and U.K., according to sources with knowledge of the conversations. They group discussed what they thought the Mail had obtained and if they could persuade its leadership that Kotick had been wrongly accused.

Kotick reportedly told people that his then-girlfriend threatened the Mail in 2016, saying its relationship business with Facebook may change if the story was published. Facebook was responsible for 10% of MailOnline’s U.K traffic in 2010, which had dropped to 3.86% in 2019.

Kotick denied saying so in a statement to WSJ, calling it “inaccurate” without providing further details.

Martin Clarke, then editor in chief of the MailOnline, told employees they would not run an article about the restraining order and that he’d heard from Sandberg.

The pair regularly tapped employees at each other’s companies for public relations-advice during the three years they dated, say sources. Sandberg reached out directly to the great-grandson of the Daily Mail’s founder in 2019 to again kill the story, citing a “commitment to getting the facts right.”

Facebook has started an internal review of Sandberg’s actions to see if they violated company rules, according to people familiar with the matter.

Kotick has been at the helm of Activision since 1991 but came under fire recently over allegations of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination at the company, which WSJ reported that he knew of for years.

Activision Blizzard was purchased by Microsoft in January for $68.7 million.

Sandberg has been No. 2 at Meta, and its predecessor Facebook, since 2008. She is an outspoken champion of women in the workplace, best known in her book, “Lean In.”