Jeff Bezos and girlfriend Lauren Sanchez have been apart for 28 days
Jeff Bezos and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez have not seen each other in 28 days — after the exposé of their long-term affair turned into a wider scandal over deeply personal text leaks, Page Six has learned.
The couple’s romance was made public on Jan. 9, just hours after the Amazon founder announced he and his wife, MacKenzie, were divorcing.
However, the pair — last spotted in public together at the Golden Globes on Jan. 6 — have been kept apart amid an investigation into how their racy texts were obtained by the National Enquirer.
Sanchez — who is still in the midst of a divorce with her husband, WME/IMG co-CEO Patrick Whitesell — and her family have been dragged into the investigation, which is being spearheaded by Bezos’ head of security, Gavin de Becker.
While Sanchez has been relatively out of sight, Bezos has been jetting between his family homes in Seattle, Washington and Los Angeles — and was very visibly in Atlanta over the weekend for the Super Bowl. Sanchez is believed to still be living with Whitesell and their children at their Beverly Hills mansion, and has spoken to investigators, we’re told.
A source told us: “Jeff and Lauren haven’t seen each other for 28 days and counting. Of course, they’re in constant contact, but the palace intrigue exploding behind the scenes has made it extremely difficult for them to see each other.
“They’re very much in love, but there are people in the Amazon camp who would be much happier if Jeff and Lauren weren’t in love. … Things have got rather messy.”
Lauren’s brother Michael Sanchez was furious to be named as an alleged player in the embarrassing leaks of Bezos’ love-struck texts to Lauren by security guru de Becker, who last week confirmed to The Daily Beast that Michael had spoken to his investigators. They allegedly are digging into Michael’s friendships and alliances with Trumpworld figures Carter Page and Roger Stone.
De Becker, a former Justice Department adviser, has indicated that “strong leads point to political motives.”
Bezos is the owner of the Washington Post, which is critical of President Trump, but sources say there is no suggestion the administration was involved in the leaks. Stone has denied accessing Bezos’ texts, even though nobody has accused him of doing so.
De Becker would not comment when we asked if he believed Lauren was in any way complicit in, or knew about, the sext leaks. The Daily Beast previously reported that the investigation has not uncovered evidence that she was involved.
But Michael responded to Page Six: “I am not dignifying de Becker’s passive aggressive allegations, ‘dog whistle smears’ or his conservative conspiracy theories. I’ve recommended Lauren fire him as security for her and the Whitesell children.”
Page Six revealed Bezos and Lauren were seeing each other shortly after Bezos announced his divorce from his wife of 25 years. The National Enquirer then revealed it had tailed the pair for four months and had a dossier of damning photos.
On Sunday we exclusively revealed how Bezos — who was front and center at the Super Bowl as he partied with Patriots owner Bob Kraft and joined NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell during the game — had pulled a multimillion-dollar Super Bowl commercial for his space exploration firm, Blue Origin, allegedly because Lauren had worked on it.
TV insiders said Bezos nixed the space exploration ad when his affair with Lauren went public. Lauren, a former TV anchor and helicopter pilot, has been shooting aerial footage of Blue Origin rocket launches and landings for Bezos.
“Bezos did shoot a Blue Origin ad, costing around $15 to $20 million, that was scheduled to run during the Super Bowl,” a source said.
“There was talk that he spent so much money on it because he wanted to be close to her. But the speculation is that he pulled the ad because it would be embarrassing because Lauren worked on the ads.”
There were Super Bowl ads for Alexa and Amazon Prime and a last-minute ad for the Washington Post, to which Michael Sanchez wrote on Twitter: “Hypocrisy, stupidity or both? Advise boss to replace beautiful ad with shameless, tone-deaf ‘Freedom of The Press’ ad – while you & lawyer send letters to journalists & media counsel in what appears to be a desperate attempt to ‘Muzzle the Press.'”
Page Six has not received any letters from Bezos or his lawyers. Reps for Bezos and Amazon didn’t get back to us.
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