Sharing explicit texts from your boyfriend with your brother might not sound like the most advisable path towards marriage, but that's just one of several odd things about Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos' relationship.
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00:00Sharing explicit texts from your boyfriend with your brother might not sound like the
00:05most advisable path towards marriage. But that's just one of several odd things about
00:09Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos' relationship.
00:13After Amazon founder Bezos' marriage to Mackenzie Scott ended in 2019, he quickly found love
00:18again with journalist Lauren Sanchez. Their relationship only got more serious when he
00:23popped the question in May 2023. Weirdly enough, the two of them reportedly first met thanks
00:29to Sanchez's first husband, Endeavor executive chairman Patrick Whitesell.
00:34As an insider told Us Weekly, Whitesell introduced Lauren to Jeff and suggested they work together
00:39on a documentary.
00:41Bezos made good use of Sanchez's talents as a helicopter pilot by having her shoot some
00:45aerial footage for his company, Blue Origin. Things ended up becoming romantic between
00:50the two of them around the end of both of their respective marriages.
00:54Just hours after Bezos announced his split from Scott, a source told People magazine
00:58that Sanchez and Whitesell's union was over as well, while also noting,
01:02"...Lauren and Jeff have been spending a lot of time together over the last year and especially
01:07the past few months. At first it was socially at parties, here and there, but their time
01:12together has definitely seemed to evolve, raising some eyebrows."
01:15The source also insisted that Whitesell and Sanchez's marriage had been on the rocks for
01:19a while and that Whitesell was aware of the new romance. However, the source who spoke
01:24to Us Weekly claimed,
01:26"...Patrick was totally blindsided. He had no idea how serious the affair was or how
01:30long it was going on for."
01:32Shortly after Bezos and Sanchez's relationship became public knowledge, the National Enquirer
01:38published explicit texts between the two of them from April 2018. Perhaps the most striking
01:43thing about them was the unusual phrasing. As Bezos declared in one,
01:47"...I love you alive, girl. I will show you with my body and my lips and my eyes very
01:52soon."
01:53"...uh, phrasing?"
01:56Bezos also reportedly included a picture of his private parts along with the messages.
02:00Their relationship appeared to have a strong emotional connection by this point as well,
02:04as Bezos expressed his desire for deep conversations and longed to see Sanchez for breakfast.
02:10The Enquirer posited that Mackenzie Scott started suspecting that her husband's relationship
02:14with Sanchez was more than platonic when she learned that they were taking a flight together
02:18with nobody else on board. However, Bezos reassured her that it was just a business
02:23meeting.
02:24The development had dire consequences not just for Bezos and Sanchez's respective marriages,
02:29but for his company as well. As Amazon PR chief Greg Berman explained on the Foundering
02:34podcast,
02:35"...the CEO image that Bezos had spent two decades cultivating of a devoted family man
02:40and committed husband was a thing of the past. In a sense, his personal life had become incompatible
02:45with his professional responsibilities."
02:49In 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that the National Enquirer had paid Lauren
02:52Sanchez's brother, Michael, $200,000 in exchange for Sanchez and Bezos' racy private messages.
02:59This bizarre revelation became even stranger when the New York Post reported that she was
03:04the one who actually sent her brother the explicit texts.
03:07This claim was bolstered when Gavin DeBecker, Bezos' personal security consultant, told
03:12the Daily Beast that Michael was a person of interest in their investigation to find
03:16the source of the leak. His motivation was unclear, although DeBecker noted,
03:20"...strong leads point to political motives."
03:23However, Michael denied that he was the source of the leak, telling Vanity Fair,
03:27"...Lauren likely shared them with multiple girlfriends, not in a malicious way, that's
03:31not her style. But when she's in love, she got a kick out of sharing them."
03:35Michael also mentioned that his sister had shown him explicit photos from another lover.
03:40However, when he was pressed about whether or not he was behind the text leaks, he coyly
03:44answered,
03:45"...without saying I didn't do something."
03:47"...let's cut to the chase. Everything that I did was to protect Jeff and Lauren's love
03:53affair."
03:54Michael ultimately sued his future brother-in-law in 2020 for defamation for accusing him of
03:59sharing Bezos' lewd photos. That lawsuit was dismissed in November, though the legal battle
04:04raged on. In January 2021, Bezos demanded that Michael reimburse the $1.7 million he
04:10had incurred in legal fees from the case. He was ultimately awarded $218,000.
04:17In January 2019, one of Bezos' former friends pointed out to Page Six a huge red flag regarding
04:23Sanchez, her tendency to jump from one serious relationship to the next. As this former friend
04:28put it bluntly,
04:29"...Jeff Bezos is seriously stupid if he's thinking of marrying her. He's already seriously
04:34stupid for giving up half his fortune for her."
04:38Sanchez was previously engaged to retired NFL player Anthony Miller, who pointed out
04:42another red flag when he talked to the Daily Mail that same year. As he recounted,
04:46"...I couldn't really trust her. She gets around. She was cheating on me with other
04:50guys. I found out when I looked in her diary, and I found out more after I broke up with
04:55her."
04:56However, it's worth noting that another source claimed that Miller was the one who was unfaithful
05:00in their relationship. Either way, infidelity was the reason that Michael Sanchez was leery
05:05of his sister's romance with Bezos in its early days. In 2019, he told Page Six that
05:10she had tried to set up a casual meeting between him and Bezos a year earlier, though Michael
05:15made it clear that he wasn't interested. As he declared to multiple friends at the time,
05:19"...Not my circus. Not my clowns."
05:22Eventually, though, after much prodding from his sister, Michael grabbed dinner with the
05:26couple and realized that their relationship was far more serious than he previously thought.