Who is the woman that could end up cutting Jeff Bezos’ $135 billion net worth in half? Meet Lauren Sanchez, the “alive girl” mistress—as Bezos called her in secret texts—to the world’s richest man.
The 49-year-old Sanchez is a third-generation Mexican American, born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After graduating from USC, Wendy Sanchez (which is her given name) went into broadcasting at a local TV station in Phoenix. She later moved into reporting gigs at Fox Sports and the entertainment show “Extra.”
Along the way, she ended up dating former Kansas City Chiefs tight end Tony Gonzalez—with whom she has a 17-year-old son—and NYPD Blue star Henry Simmons. Then in 2003 she met her current husband, Patrick Whitesell, a powerful Hollywood agent who represents A-list stars like Christian Bale, Michelle Williams, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Costner and Jared Leto. The pair married in 2005 and have a 12-year-old son, Evan, and 10-year-old daughter, Ella, together.
Coincidentally, it was Sanchez’s husband who brought Bezos into contact with his wife. Sanchez and Whitsell were neighbors of Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos on Mercer Island, Washington. And Bezos and Whitesell subsequently worked together on the 2016 Oscar-winning film Manchester by the Sea. It was reportedly at a holiday party celebrating that movie that Bezos first made a romantic overture toward Sanchez.
Bezos later hired Sanchez, who is also an accomplished helicopter pilot, to film aerial promotional footage for his space company, Blue Origin. The couple’s romance blossomed during 2018 and after months of secret trysts, Sanchez and Bezos confessed their affair to their respective spouses this past November. And they are reportedly going to remain together after divorcing their current spouses.
But the Bezos split could end up as the world’s costliest divorce, since Washington is a “community property” state. This could meant that Bezos’ current wife, MacKenzie, could end up with tens of billions of dollars in Amazon controlling interest.
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