An Australian whisky company chief Geoff Bainbridge resigned after "extortion" video.
An Australian whisky company chief said Wednesday he had resigned after an "extortion" video apparently showing him smoking a methamphetamine pipe was published in national media.
Newspaper The Australian released video on its website showing a shirtless Geoff Bainbridge smoking from a glass pipe while talking about using "meth" and making sexual remarks to an unseen person.
It warned viewers the video may be "disturbing or offensive".
Lark Distilling said Bainbridge, 50, had resigned with immediate effect as chief executive and managing director "to allow him to manage a personal matter that was brought to the attention of the board".
Bainbridge said in a statement he had resigned after a video showing him engaging in "illicit drug use" had been used to blackmail him for years.
The whisky executive and co-founder of Australian burger chain Grill'd said the incident took place overseas before he was appointed chief executive of the distillery.
"I attended a gathering with people I didn't know and don't remember much more about that night," Bainbridge said.
"However, the next morning I was played footage which made it clear I had been set up as part of a shakedown," he added.
"Following the incident, due to this captured content, I have been the subject of a sophisticated, continuing and recently escalated extortion."
Bainbridge said he initially paid his extortionists but stopped on advice from a London threat-assessment agency.
"This resulted in video imagery being released to several media outlets," he said.
"I'm a victim of extortion but that wouldn't have occurred without my poor judgement. I am deeply remorseful for my own actions."
In an interview from Los Angeles with the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, Bainbridge said that in December 2015, he awoke in an unfamiliar apartment while visiting a country in Southeast Asia for business.
He was confronted there by two men with the explicit video and quickly made the first of a string of payments to avoid public exposure.
The executive told the Australian papers he had met a woman in a bar after a day of meetings and visited her apartment, where another couple was already present. They drank more, and shared a joint, he reportedly said. But his memory of events after that was unclear.
Bainbridge confirmed he was the man in the video but told the newspapers he was not a methamphetamine user and did not know how he came to have the drug in the video.
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