Just hours after Jeff Bezos and wife MacKenzie announced they are divorcing after 25 years of marriage, it is now understood that the Amazon founder and CEO has quietly been seeing Lauren Sanchez-Whitesell, wife of WME co-CEO Patrick Whitesell.
News of the new relationship — first reported by Page Six — has been confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter. Lauren Sanchez-Whitesell and Patrick Whitesell married in 2005 and, according to sources, only recently separated. They have two children together, a daughter, born in 2008, and a son, born in 2006. Lauren has another son born in 2001, from her first marriage to former NFL star Tony Gonzalez.
The Whitesells have been frequent guests to Bezos’ Seattle home, a source tells THR, and the couple was photographed with Jeff Bezos at a party for the streamer’s Manchester by the Sea during awards season in 2016, an event that was hosted by Bezos and producer Matt Damon, one of Whitesell’s clients. The WME veteran represents a long list of A-listers including Hugh Jackman, Ben Affleck, Christian Bale, Michelle Williams, Ryan Reynolds, Jared Leto and Kevin Costner. Also of note: Whitesell represents John Krasinski, star of Amazon’s Jack Ryan series.
Lauren Sanchez-Whitesell is a familiar face to local TV audiences as she worked for years an anchor on Fox’s Good Day L.A. Prior to that, she was seen on Extra. More recently, she segued to a new career as a helicopter pilot specializing in aerial filming. She launched her own company, Black Ops Aviation, and when she sat down with THR to discuss the venture, she had been forging a healthy resume of projects including Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, commercials in the Bahamas and Los Cabos, Mexico, for high-end residential developer Discovery Land, and Catherine Hardwicke’s Miss Bala.
According to Page Six, Lauren was hired to work on a Bezos project titled “Blue Origin,” which is a space launch company.
Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos — who have four children — announced their split Wednesday morning on social media. “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,” the couple wrote in the statement, shared on Jeff Bezos’ Twitter account.”If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again.”
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter