Jeff Bezos once lived an ‘abnormally normal’ lifestyle with ex-wife MacKenzie, but since meeting glamorous fiancee Lauren Sanchez he’s embraced brash billionaire style

Holidaying on a super yacht in Sardinia with A-list friends, including notorious lothario Leonardo DiCaprio and his latest younger model girlfriend, is exactly how you’d expect a billionaire to spend the summer. 

However, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, 60, has certainly not always lived the high life – despite the fortune he’s made from the hugely successful company he started some 30-years-ago in his garage.

In 2019, after the business mogul’s divorce from ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos was finalised, Jeff appeared to undergo a huge transformation, trading in his once ‘abnormally normal’ life for a much more glamorous one.

Jeff used to be regarded by many as a low-key private tech geek. For instance, the billionaire e-commerce giant was still driving a 1997 Honda in 2013 – despite making his first appearance on Forbes list of America’s 400 wealthiest people in 1998 – because it was ‘a perfectly good car’.   

It’s a far cry from the luxury he now enjoys, alongside fiancée Lauren Sanchez. Just last week the couple were seen rubbing shoulders with A-list stars including Leonardo DiCaprio and Katy Perry as they enjoyed a holiday aboard Jeff’s $500 million yacht. 

Currently the world’s second richest man (after Elon Musk), Jeff’s formerly low-key life has undergone quite a transformation following his divorce from ex-wife MacKenzie in 2019. 

Jeff and MacKenzie met when the latter interviewed for a job at D.E. Shaw & Co (a New York hedge fund) in 1993.

As co-workers, a workplace romance blossomed between the two, with MacKenzie telling Vogue in 1993 about how they got together.

She said: ‘My office was next door to his, and all day long, I listened to that fabulous laugh. How could you not fall in love with that laugh?’

MacKenzie, who grew up in San Francisco, has been described as a shy child who spent much time alone in her room writing. By the age of six, she’d completed a 142-page novel called The Book Worm.

She attended prestigious university Princeton, where she studied fiction, and her literary abilities were praised by her Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tony Morrison, who said MacKenzie was ‘one of the best students [he’d] ever had’.

Her childhood shyness did not stop her from making the first move when it came to Jeff – she asked him out to lunch one day. Three months later, they got engaged, tying the knot three months after that.

During the very early years of their marriage, the couple left New York, renting a one-bedroom home in Seattle so Jeff could work on his dream – creating an online bookshop.

As one of Amazon’s first employees (she was offered an accountancy role when the company started to become successful), she has spoken out about her contribution to the company’s success.

‘I was there when he wrote the business plan, and I worked with him and many others represented in the converted garage, the basement warehouse closet, the barbecue-scented offices, the Christmas-rush distribution centres, and the door-desk-filled conference rooms in the early years of Amazon’s history,’ she once said.

As Amazon became increasingly successful, Jeff and MacKenzie invested in a portfolio of buildings, snapping up properties in Washington, Beverley Hills, California, Texas and Manhattan, New York.

Despite their immense wealth, the couple were determined to maintain a normal family life with their four children – three sons and a daughter they adopted from China.

This staggering wealth meant that when the couple divorced, the division of assets was a topic of interest for many.

Reports at the time said Jeff ‘got off lightly’ when it came to the agreement he and Mackenzie came to in their split. 

While they didn’t explain their reasoning behind the division of assets, Mackenzie took just half of what she was entitled to, keeping a four percent stake in Amazon (then valued at worth $35.8billion) as opposed to eight percent.

Meanwhile Jeff kept 75 percent of their joint $144billion Amazon stake – a 12 per cent stake valued at that time at around $107.5billion.

He also took voting control of his ex-wife’s remaining shares, and was given her interest in The Washington Post, which he bought for $250million in 2013, as well as Blue Origin, the space travel company he was investing in.

Mackenzie opened a Twitter account to share her statement about the split, in which she said she was ‘grateful’ that the process was over and was ‘excited’ for the ‘next phase’.  

‘Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness, and looking forward to the next phase as co-parents and friends,’ she wrote.

‘Happy to be giving him all of my interest in the Washington Post and Blue Origin and 75 per cent of our Amazon stock plus voting control of my shares to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies.

‘Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.’

Meanwhile, in his own statement, Jeff said: ‘I’m so grateful to all my friends and family for reaching out with encouragement and love.

‘It means more than you know. MacKenzie most of all.

I’m grateful for her support and for her kindness in this process and am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents.

‘In all our work together, MacKenzie’s abilities have been on full display.

‘She has been an extraordinary partner, ally and mother.

‘She is resourceful and brilliant and loving and as our futures unroll, I know I’ll always be learning from her.’

Despite these details being made public at this time, there was no mention of how the couple would divide their sprawling property portfolio or other investments.

Notably, nor was there any reference to Jeff’s girlfriend Lauren Sanchez, this is despite reports that it was Jeff’s romance with Lauren which prompted their divorce announcement in January that year.      

While there are varying reports as to when Jeff started a relationship with his current fiancee Lauren Sanchez, it has been claimed that the two first met as far back as 2016.

It’s claimed that the two were ‘cordial’ acquaintances until they met at another event in 2018. Later that year, they started working together, when Jeff hired Black Ops Aviation, Lauren’s production company, to work for his aerospace company, Blue Origin, garnering content.

Reports say that Lauren – a helicopter pilot, former Miss Junior America New Mexico, and reporter for Extra – and Jeff started their relationship that year. At the time, Lauren was married to Patrick Whitesell, a top Hollywood talent agent, which meant that she was familiar to many in Tinseltown herself.

A magazine outed the couple for having an affair while both married, and the pair’s lifestyle has been tabloid fodder since.

The change in Jeff’s lifestyle since divorcing MacKenzie has been stark: the couple were married for 25 years, and during that time, Jeff shared some of the details of their surprisingly low-key lifestyle.

In 2018, while speaking at a conference in Washington DC, he revealed how he had a strict bedtime.

According to Jeff: ‘I go to bed early, I get up early. I get eight hours of sleep, unless I’m travelling in different time zones.

‘Sometimes it’s impossible but I am very focused on it. For me, I need eight hours of sleep. I think better, I have more energy, my mood is better, all these things.’

He also opened up about his surprisingly normal mornings, saying that he liked to ‘putter’ during this time.   

‘I like to read the newspaper, I like to have coffee, I like to have breakfast with my kids before they go to school…My puttering time is very important to me,’ he explained.

Other reports suggest the billionaire would also get stuck into normal household chores, with some claiming he would wash the plates every evening. 

According to a mutual friend of the couple, Danny Hillis, MacKenzie would drive the children to school before dropping Jeff off at work in their Honda.  

‘They are such a normal, close-knit family, it’s almost abnormal,’ Danny told Vogue.

Four years after his divorce was finalised, Jeff got down on one knee to propose to his Emmy Award-winning journalist girlfriend – with Lauren saying yes.

The 2023 proposal took place aboard Jeff’s $500 million superyacht and was sealed with an impressive sparkler. 

Estimated by some to be between 15 and 20 carats, Lauren’s diamond ring has been valued at between $3 and $5 million dollars.

In their years together, the couple has enjoyed what appears to be a far more luxurious lifestyle than the low-key years Jeff spent with Mackenzie. 

Since going public in 2019, the couple have flaunted their love around the world, holidaying aboard Jeff’s megayacht and enjoying a dinner date with former celebrity couple Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson.

As well as their luxury yacht trips, the couple take holidays to five-star resorts, private jet flights, and beachside getaways.

They dine in sought-after restaurants, attend elite parties, and mingle with some of Jeff’s celebrity friends.

In addition, it has been reported that in December 2019, Jeff threw a huge birthday celebration for his girlfriend at his sprawling Beverly Hills mansion, which was attended by stars including Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom, Scooter Braun, and Timothée Chalamet. 

Then in 2020, the couple was seen house hunting together around Los Angeles. And a few weeks later, news hit the web that Jeff had bought a new home in Beverly Hills for $165 million – which they seemingly moved into together.  

The 13,600-square-foot mansion sits on 9.4 acres of land and comes complete with a tennis court, swimming pool, nine-hole golf course, and motor court (which boasts its own service garage and gas pumps).

In addition to the luxury home, Lauren has been expanding her wardrobe since her romance with Jeff began, and the TV personality is now often seen toting around designer handbags and donning exquisite jewellery pieces that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

During a 2023 trip to London, Lauren was seen wearing a slew of pricy accessories, including a $28,500 Jacquie Aiche necklace combo, a $105,000 Birkin bag, and a pair of $1,045 Cartier sunglasses.

Originally from Albuquerque, Lauren has been a television personality for more than 20 years, working as a news anchor and entertainment reporter as well as TV host and contributor to shows like Larry King Live, The Joy Behar Show and Showbiz Tonight. 

She began her media career at KCOP-TV in Los Angeles, working as a desk assistant.

She moved to KTVK-TV in Phoenix where she worked as an anchor and reporter, before then working for entertainment show Extra as a reporter.

Lauren went on to earn an Emmy nomination as anchor and correspondent for the sports magazine Going Deep while working at Fox Sports Net. She worked as an anchor for Fox Sports News Primetime, then an entertainment reporter for the network’s Best Damn Sports Show Period.

Further positions included hosting So You Think You Can Dance and entertainment reporting for KTTV. 

While Lauren still occasionally works on TV shows, in 2016, she founded Black Ops Aviation.

As the first female-owned aerial film and production company, it allowed her to use her skills as a licensed pilot while she focuses on film and television projects.

She has previously said she wants to fly to space with all-female crew.

Lauren is also a philanthropist and the vice-chairperson of Bezos Earth Fund.

Earlier this year, she pledged to donate $60 million which would help create centres that focus on biomanufacturing and climate change.

And she is also involved in the Bezos’ Courage and Civility Award, which honours people who serve their community.

Over the years, Lauren has undergone a significant image change, transforming from her ‘girl next door’ style to a racier look, with her trademark outfits often featuring low-cut necklines, high hemlines, and see-through fabrics.

She was snapped wearing another of her revealing ensembles during a recent beach outing. 

On Friday, the couple were snapped soaking up the sun in Italy alongside a number of A-list guests.

Among them were Leonardo DiCaprio, his girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti, and Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom.

According to reports, the high-profile group has been sailing around the Mediterranean aboard Bezos’ superyacht. 

The celebrity couples were pictured as they disembarked from a tender boat at Nikki Beach on the island of Sardinia. They were spotted being driven to nearby Arzachena for lunch before returning to the superyacht.

This influx of celebrities didn’t seem to bother the guests already gathered at the high-end beach resort, although some were seen taking snaps with cell phones as the stars wandered the beach. 

The yacht marks an extreme departure from the humble Honda he continued to drive after becoming a billionaire in the late nineties.

This is evident in the name of the vessel – Koru – which translates to ‘new beginnings’ in Maori, according to The Independent.

The Amazon founder initially commissioned the construction of the vessel for $485 million in 2018, and it took almost five years to build.

The Koru has three decks and is 250-feet tall, marking the world’s tallest sailing yacht.

Boat International reported in April 2023 that it has a trio of masts that measure at a distance eclipsing 230 feet. 

It measures at a width of 416 feet, only one of four yachts globally that eclipses the length of 328 feet.

In addition to changing his lifestyle, fans of the billionaire businessman have noted a change in his appearance.

His thinning hair, captured in nineties photos of Jeff has gone, replaced by a shaved head.

And he seems to have adopted a grooming regime when it comes to his eyebrows, with photos showing no sign of the monobrow present in older snaps.

However, perhaps the biggest change to his image in recent years is that he appears to have hit the gym in earnest, substantially beefing up his frame.

While the young Jeff was a little rounder in the face, by the time he had amassed his fortune he had slimmed down and sported a leaner look.

However, since partnering new squeeze Lauren – but as early as 2017 when he was still with his wife Mackenzie, Jeff has beefed up considerably, sporting the kind of physique usually reserved for action heroes.

His wardrobe has also changed in recent years, with the billionaire known for the statement outfits he wears for events, and the more casual, cooler ensembles he wears during his downtime – another far cry from his old trademark chinos and shirt look.