Why ‘deeply in love’ Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are staying apart

Lauren Sanchez has been telling friends that she and the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, have agreed to stay physically apart until their divorces are finalized — but they talk every day and remain “deeply in love.”

A Hollywood source told Page Six, “Lauren and Jeff talk all the time, but she wants to stay low-key until their divorces are final, when they will be together. Lauren insists she and Jeff haven’t seen each other since the Enquirer story about their affair broke on Jan. 9, and that she and Jeff both decided to stay apart until their divorces were done, which could be within a few weeks. It’s mostly to protect the privacy of their children, but also because they felt it was the right thing to do.”

Sanchez’s divorce with Hollywood power agent Patrick Whitesell is “effectively sealed,” we are told, but the progress of Bezos’ negotiations with wife of 25 years MacKenzie is unknown.

After the affair was revealed by the Enquirer, along with a series of racy texts, there has been a hunt for the source of the leaks.

This caused a rift between Sanchez and her brother Michael Sanchez, who admits to cooperating with the tabloid but insists he wasn’t the only source and he was contacted when it was already working on the story.

The source said, “Lauren is no longer talking to her brother, and now he’s threatening to write a book about her and Jeff.”

Michael was paid $200,000 by Enquirer publisher AMI (which he has strongly denied), the source said, adding, “The situation is sad. Jeff actually liked Michael, although he only met him a few times. Michael could have had the keys to the kingdom if he’d protected Lauren and Jeff, but he gave it up for $200,000.”

Michael earlier told The Post: “I would never sell out my sister. Everything I did was to protect Jeff and Lauren.” A rep for Bezos didn’t comment, and Lauren couldn’t be reached by deadline.

Bezos’ security chief Gavin de Becker reported his probe into the leaks found the Saudis had obtained Bezos’ private data.

AMI responded that its “single source . . . was Michael Sanchez.”