On New Year’s Eve, billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos and his treasured $500 million yacht, named “Koru,” faced legal trouble when United States customs officials conducted a three-hour “routine” search, as reported by Page Six. During the operation, Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, was on board with friends, sunbathing. Sources noted that Sanchez appeared unbothered by the presence of the officials, while Bezos was not on it. The officials boarded the boat in uniform, wearing life jackets and carrying all their equipment. Bezos’ yacht happens to be the second-largest sailing yacht in the world.
Sanchez wore a printed Versace bikini, a black sarong, and a wide-brimmed white hat. In addition to his fiancée, other guests on the yacht included Sanchez’s ex-husband and close friend, 48-year-old Tony Gonzalez, a former NFL player. Sanchez and Gonzalez share a 23-year-old son. She also has two children with another ex-husband, Patrick Whitesell.
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s initial romance got off to a rocky start. Both of them were already married at the time, Jeff to MacKenzie Scott and Lauren to Patrick Whitesell. What started off as an extramarital affair soon became a concrete relationship. In 2023, Page Six reported about Bezos and Sanchez’s engagement after five years together. In August 2023, the couple celebrated the occasion together.
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While there was also a rumor about Jeff Bezos throwing a lavish 600 million dollar Aspen wedding, the Amazon founder dismissed those rumors and said, “This whole thing is completely false” and that “none of this is happening.” Bezos dismissed the rumor in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), saying, “The adage “don’t believe everything you read” is even more true today than it ever has been.” The business tycoon also cautioned people against being victims of all the fake news circulating online. Bezos is known to be obscenely rich. His estimated net worth of $176.6 billion is currently enough to make him the third-richest man in the world, as per The Forbes Billionaire List.
Jeff Bezos was married to his longtime partner, MacKenzie Scott, an author and philanthropist for 25 years. He announced their split in 2019 with a post, mentioning his personal life for the first time. “As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends,” read a joint statement that Bezos posted by Jeff Bezos on X ( formerly Twitter).
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) January 9, 2019
He continued. “We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other. If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again. We’ve had such a great life together as a married couple, and we also see wonderful futures ahead, as parents, friends, partners in ventures and projects, and as individuals pursuing ventures and adventures. Though the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain friends,” he concluded the post.
The couple share four children and an estimated 400,000 acres of property, as per TMZ. However, the property comes without a pre-decided prenup agreement, which remains surprising owing to the large number of assets each of them owns. Yet both parties seem to have claimed that the separation was amicable, just like Bill Gates and Amanda Gates.