Lauren Sánchez Bezos' Most Uncomfortable On-Screen Moments As A News Anchor

Lauren Sánchez Bezos' identity has certainly been sculpted by her marriage to billionaire Jeff Bezos, but a little-known fact about Lauren is that she has been in the media for decades. In recent years, she's been dominating headlines and interviews, but before her high-profile relationship, Lauren was on the other side of the news — i.e., reporting on it. Lauren is an Emmy Award-winning former journalist with a long career in television under her belt. Her foray into the industry began with a news assistant role at KCOP-TV in the early 1990s. Lauren went on to work for Fox's "Good Day LA" and "Extra" alongside Mario Lopez. 

Among her successes behind the news desk, Lauren has had quite a few blunders. Even worse, they were caught on live television. From a tense interview with a president to mistaking someone's fiancé for their dad, Lauren Sánchez Bezos can't escape these awkward on-screen moments, no matter how hard she tries. 

Lauren Sánchez Bezos has looked back on her time at "Extra" fondly. "I have the best memories. It was one of my first jobs out of college," she revealed in an interview with her former employer. "I got to travel the world, so I literally went out of the country for the first time with 'Extra.'" Some moments on the show, however, she might want to forget. In 2010, Sánchez Bezos experienced what it was like to be a background dancer in a Cher concert, featured in a segment on "Extra." The media mogul trained with one of the singer's dancers, who repeatedly looked disappointed in her moves. Even the show's director mused, "I thought they were sending Mario [Lopez]." 

We have to give her credit for her effort, but the segment took a weird turn when Sánchez Bezos stepped out in a revealing costume from the show. At one point, the "Extra" anchor was spinning upside down in aerial silks, donning a sequin halter bra and leggings with cut-outs down the sides. Not for nothing, she can totally rock the outfit, but it's something one wouldn't guess a professional journalist would wear on air. Though, it's not one of her most inappropriate outfits from over the years.

Lauren Sánchez Bezos did have a background in dancing before her wannabe Cher stint on "Extra." Nothing of the classically trained sort; Sánchez Bezos was slated as the host of "So You Think You Can Dance" in 2005. She was reportedly let go after the first season after falling pregnant, but her ratings tell a different story about why she was booted. Entertainment Weekly called her "a woman who seems to have received the equivalent of Botox injections for both her voice and her personality." At the same time, Variety said she was "superfluous at best as host, not adding much to the production other than embarrassing moments, such as when she mistakes a dancer's fiancé for her father."

It's true. During a pre-audition interview, Sánchez Bezos was talking to a couple when she turned to the dancer and said, "How great to have your dad here!" The auditioner replied, "My boyfriend," to which the host immediately corrected herself (via TikTok). In the voiceover after the interview, Sánchez Bezos said, "Oops," acknowledging the wildly uncomfortable moment that the producers used in the show anyway. We're wondering if she's now empathetic to the incident, considering how much younger she looks to her new husband — though Sánchez Bezos' age gap with the Amazon founder surprisingly isn't as drastic as we expected.

It's no surprise Lauren Sánchez Bezos can make rich men swoon, so when she was anchoring "Good Day LA" from a private jet in 2012, viewers watched the CEO of Flight Options LLC drool over her. To up the weirdness, Sánchez Bezos cosplayed a flight attendant. At one point in mid-conversation with CEO Mike Silvestros, the anchor got out of her chair and served him a grandiose tray of assorted fruit. "I'm having so much fun playing stewardess because I did want to do that one time," she said to the camera.  

Her exuberant mannerisms were not well-received in the comments. "She's so touchy," one YouTube user said. Others saw the irony in her reporting on a private jet, now that she is married to a man who owns one. "'We are now gonna talk to the ceo.' News the next day: 'Lauren is now dating the ceo she talked to yesterday,'" another user mused. Unfortunately, her charm wasn't enough to save face in this clip. Even worse, Sánchez Bezos referred to flight attendants as an outdated term that is generally considered offensive today (and in 2012).

She wasn't always reporting on the heights of luxury; Lauren Sánchez Bezos covered politics and once got an interview with former President Bill Clinton. However, she seemingly couldn't chip away at Clinton's icy attitude, resulting in an uncomfortable few minutes of conversation. The interview came on the heels of Clinton's stent surgery in 2010 — he received a quadruple bypass surgery in 2004. When Sánchez Bezos suggested that the surgery would have to change his lifestyle, specifically diet, Clinton immediately refuted, saying: "What they said was that I had been working too hard and sleeping too little and exercising too little, and I needed to do six days a week, not three, on the exercise and I needed to sleep a little more."

What made the interview even more tense was Sánchez Bezos' attempt at a joke — spoiler alert: it flopped. "So we know that's not gonna happen," she quipped of Clinton's need to sleep and exercise, to which the former president firmly replied: "No, we do, we do, actually. I'm exercising more, I'm sleeping a little more every night, and I'm trying to be even more rigorous about the diet." We wonder what he whispered under his breath after that awkward exchange.

Nothing was more unprofessional and cringeworthy than when Lauren Sánchez Bezos and her Fox co-anchor put in their two cents about a certain TLC show involving children. While discussing reality series "Toddlers & Tiaras" with radio host Bill Carroll during a 2012 episode of "Fox 11 News," Sánchez Bezos mentioned energy drinks, likely talking about the infamous "Go-Go Juice" that prominent "T&T" star Alana Thompson (aka "Honey Boo Boo") drank on the show. "I think it's ridiculous," she began. "I mean, any of those energy drinks for anyone, even teenagers ... " Before she could finish her thought, anchor Jeff Michael butted in: "Does it surprise either of you that these mothers are doing this? They're already painting their daughters up like hookers, for crying out loud!"

The brazenly inappropriate statement from Michael was met with chuckles from Sánchez Bezos. "It's true, though," she affirmed with a smile. After Carroll ranted about the premise of the show — families documented as they put their children through beauty pageants — Sánchez Bezos concluded: "It is pretty disgusting by the way." The whole segment felt like when a stand-up comedian bombs a joke and the audience's laughter flatlines. Stick to the teleprompter, guys.