The Republican presidential primary campaign, which has at times devolved into schoolyard taunts and nasty insults, has been rocked by an alleged sex scandal involving Texas Sen. Ted Cruz: The National Enquirer reports the candidate has had a series of extramarital affairs involving five different women.

At a campaign appearance in Wisconsin Friday, Cruz rejected the allegations as "garbage,," slammed the Enquirer for publishing them and pointed the finger at GOP front-runner Donald Trump as the source, further escalating their increasingly personal feud.



"It is a tabloid smear and it has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen," he told reporters.

The senator later reiterated the denial on his campaign Facebook page.

Trump, who has an estate in Palm Beach, Florida, is reportedly longtime friends with Enquirer CEO David Pecker. The tabloid's headquarters are in nearby Boca Raton.

Trump took to social media on Friday to deny any connection to the National Enquirer story.

"I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this week's issue of the National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it," Trump said in a statement posted on his Facebook page. "Likewise, I have nothing to do with the National Enquirer and unlike Lyin' Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence. Ted Cruz's problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin' Ted Cruz."

The bombshell report, published in the magazine's March 25th issue, includes pixelated photos of the women allegedly involved with the first-term senator, but doesn't give their names.

However, several reports in online journals and on Twitter -- where the hashtag #CruzSexScandal is trending worldwide -- identify one of the women as Katrina Pierson, a former Cruz aide and tea party congressional candidate who now works for GOP front-runner Donald Trump.

Pierson also rejected the allegations on Twitter:



Of course the National Enquirer story is 100% FALSE!!! I only speak to myself, however.



Carry on... — Katrina Pierson (@KatrinaPierson) March 25, 2016

Another of Cruz's purported lovers outed by the Internet is Sarah Isgur Flores, who worked for former Republican presidential contender Carly Fiorina. The former Hewlett-Packard CEO briefly challenged Trump for the lead in the race, but she dropped out of the campaign in February.

Last July, a Cruz-affiliated super PAC donated $500,000 to Fiorina's campaign, without explanation -- a highly unusual move that is being reexamined in light of the Enquirer's report about Cruz's indiscretions. And Fiorina made a highly publicized last-minute endorsement of Cruz in the final days before the Florida primary, helping him come in a respectable second to Trump and keeping his White House hopes alive.

Trump's campaign has yet to make official statements about the allegations. The senator, who has been married to Goldman Sachs executive Heidi Cruz for 15 years and has two young children with her, has made his devout Christianity a centerpiece of his campaign.



Given that the Enquirer is widely regarded as a fringe tabloid publication, a Hollywood celebrity scandal sheet with an uneven reputation for accuracy, most mainstream news outlets had avoided the story so far, or handled it gingerly. Cruz' comments will likely change that and assure it continues to be a topic of conversation on the campaign trail.

A Trump supporter, Boston radio host Adriana Cohen, raised the allegations in a CNN segment Friday morning, but Amanda Carpenter, a former Cruz campaign spokesperson, rejected them as "smut" and said Cohen should be ashamed for mentioning them.

Within the hour, Cruz spoke to reporters in Wisconsin.

But the Enquirer is the same news outlet that reported John Edwards -- a former North Carolina Democratic senator who challenged President Barack Obama and current party front-runner Hillary Clinton for the 2008 presidential nomination -- had been involved with documentary filmmaker Rielle Hunter and had fathered her daughter that year.