Strange Things About Jeff Bezos And Lauren Sanchez's Relationship

Jeff Bezos delivered strangeness by the truckload after marrying MacKenzie Scott, but the Amazon founder's relationship with Lauren Sánchez is arguably just as odd. On January 9, 2019, Bezos tweeted that he and Scott were getting divorced. Hours later, the National Enquirer claimed that it possessed photos and text messages proving that Bezos and Sánchez had been carrying on an extramarital affair for months. When the tabloid published the contents of some of those messages, we got a small taste of just how weird things were going to get.

According to the National Enquirer, an April 2018 message from Bezos to Sánchez read, "I love you, alive girl. I will show you with my body, and my lips and my eyes, very soon." (Apparently, Bezos finds it highly complimentary to assure a gal that he doesn't think she's a zombie.) While it's not a common occurrence for relationships to be tested by the publication of leaked texts in the pages of a tabloid, Sánchez would later insist that she and her billionaire tech exec beau are not so different from the rest of us. "Our lives are pretty normal," she told Vogue. For their joint 2023 interview with the fashion mag, she and Bezos cosplayed as "Yellowstone" characters on Bezos' 400,000-acre ranch in Texas. 

One could also argue that it's rather abnormal for a helicopter crash survivor like Bezos to fall in love with a helicopter pilot like Sánchez, but strangeness is par for the course for this couple. 

Like Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sánchez still had a spouse when their affair began. The entertainment reporter was married to Hollywood talent agency exec Patrick Whitesell, with whom she shares a son and a daughter. Sánchez also shares an adult son with former Kansas City Chiefs tight end Tony Gonzalez. Because Bezos and MacKenzie Scott share four children, Sánchez told The Wall Street Journal of their blended families, "We are the Brady Bunch!" However, the way the TV characters became the Brady Bunch involved widowhood, not a married man meeting a lovely lady through her husband. According to The Wall Street Journal, this is exactly what happened when Whitesell introduced Bezos to Sánchez; the trio were even photographed together at a Hollywood party in 2016. "Patrick and Lauren have socialized with Jeff Bezos and his wife for a few years, because both [now former] couples have houses in Seattle," a source told Page Six in 2019.

Bezos and Sánchez's romance reportedly began to blossom when he hired her to do some aerial photography work for his space technology company, Blue Origin. A source told People that the lovebirds' respective spouses at the time were made aware of their relationship months before the public learned about it. After Sánchez and Whitesell initiated divorce proceedings, they continued sharing their marital home for a while, per another People report. And when Bezos ended his marriage, the divorce settlement Scott got was massive.

Donald Trump celebrated the leaked news of Jeff Bezos' affair with a tweet, apparently because he erroneously believed that the scandal would lead to Bezos relinquishing ownership of one of Trump's "fake news" foes, The Washington Post. In a Medium essay, Bezos suggested that the National Enquirer's story about his relationship with Lauren Sánchez was possibly politically motivated; the tabloid's owner, David Pecker, was good pals with Trump, after all. But how did the Enquirer learn about the affair in the first place?

According to The Daily Beast [link w/out paywall] and The Wall Street Journal, Lauren's brother Michael Sánchez — a talent manager who happens to be a Trump supporter — shared the spicy texts between his sister and Bezos with the Enquirer and received $200,000 in return. After Bezos' security chief, Gavin de Becker, launched an investigation into the origin of the Enquirer's story, Michael filed a defamation suit against de Becker and Bezos accusing them of falsely alleging that he had provided the tabloid with intimate photos of Bezos. However, in the suit, which was later dismissed, Michael did confess to providing information about the affair to the Enquirer.

According to the book "Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire" (via the New York Post), Michael obtained Lauren and Bezos' texts from his sister, who willingly shared them with him. "The sibling relationship was, to put it mildly, unusual," writes author Brad Stone.

Lauren Sánchez and Tony Gonzalez are doing Gwyneth Paltrow proud by maintaining their uncoupled connection. Sánchez and Tony split in 2001 not long after they welcomed their son Nikko, and their co-parenting relationship eventually evolved into a friendship. In her January 2023 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Sánchez admitted that there was some "friction" they had to work past, but by the time Tony got married to October "Tobie" Gonzalez in 2007, Sánchez was ready to welcome his new wife to the family fold with open arms. "Tony and Tobie were at Thanksgiving with us [this year], and we're really good friends," she said. "I'm so proud of it. My son looks at me, and he's like, 'I'm the luckiest boy in the world because I can have Thanksgiving with both my parents and they don't have to be married.'"

When October celebrated her birthday in October 2023, Sánchez posted photos of herself and her friend hanging out together on her Instagram Story. In one snapshot, she was giving October a kiss on the cheek. "I love you SO SO much," she wrote. October returned the love when talking to Vogue about her friend's effervescent personality. "I think one of her greatest qualities is that no matter what situation I can look over and she's wide-eyed and like, Can you believe where we are right now?" October said. "She's like a little girl, constant awe and giddiness."

According to the National Enquirer, Jeff Bezos texted his dream girl about the dreams MacKenzie Scott was having before he and his wife of 25 years called it quits. "MacKenzie dreamt I redecorated the bedroom," one of Bezos' texts to Lauren Sánchez reportedly read. "I kept doing it and it got weirder and weirder and weirder. Until I was sewing stuffed turtles into the comforter." Bezos revealed that Scott told him, "That's not hard to interpret," but he didn't share his then-wife's theory about the meaning of his dream.

Was Bezos obsessed with changing his space because he wanted to make another even bigger change in his life? (Note that it was his bedroom he was redecorating.) And did he find the turtle's protective shell appealing because he had a secret to protect? Or maybe he was dreaming about turtles of the aquatic variety who dwell deep beneath the waves because they represented the depth of his feelings for Sánchez. "Lauren, I'm in love with you. Deep," another message read. Bezos went on to say that one reason he was falling so hard for Sánchez was her knack for giving him excellent business advice, such as asking Bono if he could use some of the U2 lead singer's music for an unidentified project. "Your energy and ideas and competence and spirit turn me on," Bezos wrote. It's nice to know that he appreciates ánchez for her beauty and her brains.

Lauren Sánchez is no stranger to the world of celebrity; she's worked as an entertainment reporter for "Extra" and has even appeared in a number of movies, including "The Day After Tomorrow" and "We Bought a Zoo." But she's not immune to getting starstruck. While speaking to The Wall Street Journal about playing a news reporter in "Fight Club," she quipped, "Jared Leto calls me hot — I peaked!" Then there was the time she was filmed gazing adoringly at Leonardo DiCaprio at the 2021 LACMA Art+Film Gala.

In a video that went viral on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Sánchez had a huge grin on her face as she hugged DiCaprio, and her eyes were glued to the actor while he animatedly spoke to her and Bezos. Barstool Sports tweeted the video along with the words, "Leo is Mr. Steal Yo Girl." 

One X user joked, "Leo about to be the first actor in space." However, Bezos proved that the video didn't make him feel insecure at all by responding to it with a shirtless photo of himself. In the snapshot, he was leaning on a sign that read, "Danger! Steep cliff, Fatal drop." The e-commerce titan also had a message for the "Titanic" heartthrob. "Leo, come over here, I want to show you something..." he wrote. Maybe he just wanted to make DiCaprio feel like the King of the World again by showing him an incredible view.

Jeff Bezos' $500 million superyacht, Koru, features a female figurehead that somewhat resembles Lauren Sánchez. However, she told Vogue, "I'm very flattered, but it's not [me]." She also quipped that the carving's bod isn't as busty as her own. Bezos' wooden woman who doesn't quite stack up to Sanchez is actually supposed to be the Norse deity Freyja.

While Bezos didn't pay tribute to Sánchez by having her likeness placed on the prow of his boat in an imitation of every "Titanic" fan's fantasy (minus Leo), he did make her swoon with another grand romantic gesture while they were sailing the Mediterranean on the luxury vessel in the summer of 2023. After dinner one evening, he surprised her by popping the question. "When he opened the box, I think I blacked out a bit," Sánchez recalled to Vogue. According to The Sunday Times, Koru has its own support yacht called Abeona. When it was being constructed, Bezos requested that it include a helipad so Sánchez would have a place to land her helicopters. This special addition was made by the same man who once told Fast Company, "Avoid helicopters whenever possible! They're not as reliable as fixed-wing aircraft," after his helicopter crash. So, we know Bezos is truly smitten; he's fallen so hard for Sánchez that he's no longer worried about falling out of the sky.