Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez: A story that started in January and is starting to heat up
In January, 2019, Jeff Bezos announced the divorce with his wife MacKenzie Bezos after 25 years of their marriage.
A few hours later, the National Enquirer and some other outlets revealed that the reason for this divorce is that Jeff Bezos, the Amazon and The Washington Post CEO is having an affair with a famous actress, a Los Angeles news anchor and a helicopter pilot Lauren Sanchez.
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez have yet to publicly accept or deny their affair. Interestingly, the National Enquirer did not reveal it as a mere rumor but gave forward solid proof of the on-going affair in form of intimate texts exchanged between Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez.
The question that arose was that how the National Enquirer got those texts? Recently, a report says that National Enquirer paid $200,000 to Lauren Sanchez’s brother Michael Sanchez to leak the texts and photos of the couple to National Enquirer. As per Michael Sanchez, he did so upon the requests of his own sister to reveal their affair.
Another news by Wall Street Journal is that he was paid to do so by the tabloid publisher American Media Inc (AMI) and this is the first time such a heavy amount is paid by American Media Inc. to the sources.
Why does the story matters so much to American Media Inc.? Some sources suggest that Donald Trump is behind all of this. Also, the Journal reports this based on the fact that the National Enquirer CEO, David Pecker, is a close ally of Donald Trump.
What does Donald Trump has to do with this? Trump tweeted on the personal life of Bezos on January 13, 2019. He had some concerns regarding the posts in The Washington Post and called it a ‘lobbyist newspaper’, perhaps this scandal was brought to light because of this..
The battle started between Bezos and AMI started right after AMI published an 11 page story which includes some racy texts and the personal photographs of Jeff Bezos to Lauren Sanchez.
Jeff has also accused AMI of ‘blackmail and extortion’ to reveal the photos that include around 20 explicit photographs.
The most interesting part is that as per AMI source agreements, they pay after the story is published and if it is never published, AMI does not pay. However, in this specific case, Michael Sanchez was paid up-front and according to sources, Pecker was unaware of this up-front payment and had quite a heated argument with general counsel Cameron Stracher in NYC.
What’s more to come is that Michael Sanchez has denied this contract and has called it “old rumors.” Also, the spokesman for Jeff Bezos made no comment on the story and Lauren Sanchez didn’t respond to any request for her comments.
However, Lauren Sanchez has cut ties with her older brother Michael Sanchez. There are varying reports on whether Jeff and Lauren are still together, or if their short-lived affair has ended. Keep up to find out what happens next!