Jeff Bezos is getting married to former TV journalist Lauren Sánchez this week. The 61-year-old Amazon founder and his 55-year-old fiancée will tie the knot during a huge wedding in Venice. Who is Sánchez and how do they know each other?
Lauren Wendy Sánchez was born in the American city of Albuquerque in 1969. After studying communication science at the University of Southern California, she began her career at a local television station in Los Angeles.
She grew into a reporter and presenter at, among others, Extra and FOX Sports. Later, she became one of the first female news presenters of Latin American descent at the popular morning program Good Day LA. She also presents the well-known program So You Think You Can Dance.
Outside of her television work, Sánchez has a fascination with aviation, something that goes back to her childhood at her parents’ flight school. Her father was a pilot and aircraft mechanic. Sánchez obtained her helicopter license at the age of forty.
“I remember the instructor saying, ‘Your father is a pilot, your mother is a pilot. You must know all about flying.’ And I said, ‘All I know is to stay away from the propeller,'” she tells People Magazine.
Sánchez Makes Children’s Book Based on Her Own Experiences
In 2016, she founded her own production company: Black Ops Aviation, specializing in aerial shots for television and film. This also makes her active behind the scenes in the media industry.
In the years that followed, Sánchez broadened her field of work. In 2024, her first children’s book, The Fly Who Flew to Space, will be published, about a fly that only flourishes late in life and eventually literally grows wings.
The story is inspired by her own experiences with dyslexia. As a child, she had difficulty reading and writing, which for a long time made her feel like she was behind. Only when a teacher recognized her learning problems did Sánchez begin to regain confidence in herself.
Also in April of this year, Sánchez was part of the first all-female commercial spaceflight from Blue Origin, Bezos’ space company. She shares that mission, which lasted a total of eleven minutes, with singer Katy Perry, among others.
Both Have Been to the Altar Before
The marriage to Bezos is not the first for Sánchez. From 2005 to 2019, she was married to Hollywood agent Patrick Whitesell, with whom she has two children. She also has a 24-year-old son with former American football player Tony Gonzalez. That eldest son, Nikko, now works as a model.
Together with Bezos, she now forms a blended family with seven children: her three children and his four children from his marriage to MacKenzie Scott.
Sánchez met Bezos in 2016 at an Amazon event. She was still married to Whitesell, who is friends with Bezos. The contact between the two grew into more. The American gossip website National Enquirer learned of the affair and obtained leaked text messages and photos of the couple.
In early 2019, Bezos wrote in a striking blog post that he was being blackmailed by National Enquirer, who threatened to publish the photos. Bezos then brought the story out himself.
Shortly afterwards, he announced on Twitter that he and Scott were separating after 25 years. The divorce received worldwide attention. Not only because of the personal drama, but also because financially it is one of the largest divorces ever. Scott received 4 percent of the shares in Amazon, at that time good for about 38 billion dollars.
The Relationship Becomes More and More Public
Sánchez and Bezos no longer kept their relationship secret and were increasingly seen together in public. In May 2023, Bezos proposed to her aboard his yacht during the Cannes Film Festival.
And this week the two are getting married in Venice. It will be a million-dollar wedding with an impressive guest list full of world stars. Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio and many others will attend the ceremony.
The festival is causing a lot of controversy in Venice. Many residents of the Italian city do not want Bezos to take over Venice with his wedding. That is why the party has now been moved to another location on the edge of the city.