Nasty Relationship Rumors That Have Plagued Lauren Sánchez's Love Life

After a 2-year-long engagement, Lauren Sánchez (now Lauren Sánchez Bezos) finally walked down the aisle with Jeff Bezos in June 2025. Speaking to Vogue ahead of their lavish Venetian wedding, the former Fox News anchor shared that although she chose to forego several traditions for her nuptials, she still had something blue and something borrowed to go along with her custom designer wedding dress. While Lauren happily revealed that the glitzy Dolce and Gabbana earrings were her "something borrowed," she kept the "something blue" close to her chest, disclosing only that it was something that accompanied her on her controversial 11-minute Blue Origin space flight. 

Of course, Lauren also couldn't help but gush about her husband to be. "Jeff hasn't changed me," she clarified. "Jeff has revealed me. I feel safe. I feel seen. He lets me be me. [...] He lets me be unapologetically free." The children's author later added, "I'm happy that I'm getting married and I get to spend my life with my best friend, someone who sees me, someone who adores me, someone who I adore." Lauren painted a similarly rosy picture of their life together in a 2023 interview with the Wall Street Journal. 

In particular, although the tech billionaire had a hectic schedule, she proudly noted that Jeff still made an effort to make her Sundays special by making pancakes using the Betty Crocker cookbook recipe. Moreover, the happy couple adored each other enough to spend virtually all their free time together. Although it seems like Lauren and Jeff have all the ingredients for a happy marital life, it's still difficult not to wonder how the dodgy rumors about her prior romantic relationships could affect their future.

Jeff Bezos kickstarted his romance with Lauren Sánchez-Bezos in a rather controversial way. When the public received confirmation of their relationship in January 2019, Jeff had been married to Mackenzie Scott for 25 years, while Lauren had walked down the aisle with Patrick Whitesell 13 years prior. They both confirmed the end of their respective marriages right around the time news of their romance broke. Around the same time, the National Enquirer published some explicit texts that Jeff had sent to Lauren in April 2018. As Page Six reported at the time, the tabloid also claimed that Jeff had flirted with Lauren when he attended a house party that her husband had thrown back in 2016, supposedly telling her, "You can't fight chemistry!"  

An Us Weekly insider shed light on Whitesell's reaction to the texts: "Patrick was totally blindsided. He had no idea how serious the affair was or how long it was going on for." They continued, "Patrick had no idea she was having an affair with Jeff." While the source acknowledged that the couple had hit a rough patch in 2018, Whitesell was under the impression that they would work through their marital woes. 

The revelation likely stung even more based on a Page Six insider's assertion that he was friendly with Jeff, too. Another Page Six source only added to the Hollywood agent's embarrassment by asserting that the former Fox News host had reached out to her ex boyfriend, professional athlete Tony Gonzalez, with whom she shares a child, and told him she wouldn't marry Whitesell if he wanted to rekindle things.

During a 2019 chat with the Daily Mail, Lauren Sánchez-Bezos' ex, Anthony Miller, painted a bleak picture of their 4-year relationship. The former Denver Broncos player detailed how he had asked then-up-and-coming TV reporter Lauren out on a date after their paths crossed at the reception for the 1996 Super Bowl. According to him, the qualified helicopter pilot wouldn't stop nagging him to pop the question once they had been together for about two years, so he eventually gave Lauren a ring to stop her from bothering him. 

Additionally, the former NFL star claimed that although Lauren had a thriving career at the time of their relationship, she still expected him to cover all their bills. "I couldn't really trust her," he proclaimed, elaborating, "She gets around. She was cheating on me with other guys. I found out when I looked in her diary, and I found out more after I broke up with her." Notably, an insider stated the contrary was true since Miller had been unfaithful to Lauren with a stripper, and she had taken him back afterward, a claim which he denies. 

The source also dispelled the footballer's declaration about the former journalist being a cheapskate, pointing out that she was a millionaire during their romance. A Page Six insider who was once close to Lauren pointed out that her relationship history was a huge red flag that Jeff Bezos had completely ignored. After noting that the Blue Origin founder would be "seriously stupid" to tie the knot with her, they opined, "He's already seriously stupid for giving up half his fortune for her."

About a month after the National Enquirer published the NSFW texts that Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez-Bezos exchanged when they were both still married to other people, CBS News reported that the Amazon founder's investigations team believed that his future brother-in-law Michael Sánchez could be responsible for the leaks. Michael only made the unsavory rumors seem more plausible by conceding in an interview with Vanity Fair, "I'm not saying I didn't do something." However, he insisted that he was not the person who had shared Jeff's nude photos with the tabloid. 

Moreover, Michael had an alternate theory for who leaked the NSFW pics, suggesting, "Lauren likely shared them with multiple girlfriends, not in a malicious way, that's not her style, but when she's in love, she got a kick out of sharing them." Unfortunately for everyone involved, Michael didn't stop there and went on to profess that his sister had tried to get his eyes on the tech billionaire's lewd photos, and he had reprimanded her for it. 

In January 2020, the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc., shared a statement to reveal that they only had one informant for their exposé, who had been actively relaying information to them since September 2018: Michael. Shortly afterward, the Wall Street Journal reported that he had received a $200,000 payout in exchange for sharing the saucy messages. However, Lauren's brother responded by labeling the article a "half-truth." The revelation seems especially interesting given the fact that a security expert posited to Town & Country magazine that investigators had to consider the possibility that Lauren orchestrated the whole thing to force Jeff out of his marriage. 

In February 2025, Lauren Sánchez-Bezos shared a cryptic social media post that hinted at trouble in paradise with Jeff Bezos. On Threads, the former journalist wrote, "Some years start with turbulence, but that's just the wind reminding you to spread your wings." Needless to say, that was an eyebrow-raising revelation from someone who was due to walk down the aisle just a few months later. Then, Lauren's Valentine's Day post for Jeff accidentally revealed that they had a dry romance. First, she shared an Instagram Story featuring a bunch of candy hearts in a cup. Later, the children's author posted a black-and-white photo of her partner working and wrote, "Happy Valentines Day my love" with a white heart emoji (via People). 

The unromantic post was only made worse by the fact that Lauren had shared the same photo of the Blue Origin founder in an Instagram carousel for his birthday a month prior. Meanwhile, Jeff remained entirely tight-lipped on the special occasion. Lauren and Jeff once again set off alarm bells with their eyebrow-raising Mother's Day behavior. In an Instagram Story, the former actor shared a snap of herself posing with her three children from previous relationships and wrote alongside it, "Thank you for picking me as your mama! Best day ever," adding, "My whole world in one frame," per People. 

Naturally, her tribute got people wondering if the former Fox News anchor was slyly hinting that Jeff wasn't actually a part of her "whole world." Although the tech billionaire shared his own sweet Instagram post featuring Lauren and several other important women in his life, in honor of Mother's Day 2023, he remained strangely silent in 2025.

To many, the lavish life that Jeff Bezos' wife, Lauren Sánchez-Bezos, has been living since their relationship began is a glaring sign that he is going through some kind of midlife crisis. The Internet seemed particularly certain of that fact in May 2023 when the former journalist was spotted wearing a massive rock on her ring finger while aboard Jeff's $500 million superyacht. And their suspicions were seemingly justified when jewelry expert Briony Raymond informed People that the 25- to 30-carat engagement ring likely came with an eye-watering price tag of around $3 million to $5 million. 

The celebrity couple certainly didn't help the situation with their cringey 2023 Vogue photoshoot, which featured an awkward photo of the Blue Origin founder wearing a cowboy hat as Lauren clung to him in the front seat of a car. Somewhat surprisingly, that wasn't the first time Jeff deeply unsettled people while dressed in cowboy garb, since he also paired the accessory with his all-blue space suit for the controversial businessman's 2021 flight on a Blue Origin rocket. Additionally, Jeff's muscular body transformation, coupled with his wardrobe transformation, only added more fuel to the fire. 

However, the Amazon founder's supposed midlife crisis isn't the only thing that has caused people to question their relationship. In January 2024, a user on X, formerly known as Twitter, posted a clip of Bezos holding onto Lauren's friend's midriff as he vibed along to hip hop at his future wife's birthday party. The former Fox News host seemed completely unbothered by the closeness between the pair as she wrapped her arms around him too.