With Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos engaged, who are their exes; Mackenzie Scott and Patrick Whitesell?

Jeff Bezos and his now-fiancée Lauren Sánchez are definitely living their lives in line with Amazon’s slogan - work hard, have fun, make history.

It is fair to say the pair have built up hugely successful careers respectively with Jeff establishing his Amazon empire that is now worth around 139.1 billion USD and Lauren, an Emmy award winning media personality and former news anchor, who launched the first female-owned aerial film and production company in 2016, planning to go into space next year.

Therefore with the ‘work hard’ aspect covered, the couple who have been seeing one another for five years after being introduced in 2016, are ‘having fun’ as reports suggest they became engaged while holidaying on Bezos’ $500 million superyacht off the coast of Cannes.

Bezos reportedly popped the question after the couple were seen on the Spanish islands of Mallorca earlier this week before lowering anchor in the French Riviera, just outside where the Cannes Film Festival is taking place.

As mentioned, the engagement comes five years after the pair allegedly started seeing one another in 2018, when they were both in long-lasting marriages.

In fact, it was Lauren Sanchez’s then-husband Patrick Whitesell who introduced them to one another in 2016 as the Hollywood talent agent was friends with the Amazon founder. Little did he know that a couple years later, the National Enquirer would reveal the couple’s eight-month extramarital affair. 

In light of Lauren and Jeff hearing wedding bells on the horizon, PeopleWorld takes a look at their respective exes including Whitesell.

Lauren’s ex-husband

Before marrying Patrick Whitesell in August 2005, Lauren shared a son named Nikko with former NFL player Tony Gonzalez in 2001. Lauren then welcomed two more children with Patrick during their almost 15-year marriage, namely Evan and Ella.

Patrick is a businessman and executive chairman of the Endeavour agency, the parent company of WME talent company in Hollywood, and has been labelled as one who ‘re-wrote’ the Hollywood script with his business endeavour.

In addition to Endeavour, Patrick is also the co-CEO for IMG management, and has the likes of UTA and CAA on his CV as well as being on the board for Governor's California Film Commission and the Academy.

While Lauren’s net worth stands at $30 million and Jeff’s at $130 billion, Patrick’s is somewhere in between at $450 million.

Patrick and Lauren finalised their divorce in 2019 sharing joint custody of their two children with Patrick giving his former wife ownership of their $6.2 million house in Washington.

Patrick has now re-married to Australian actress Pia (née Loyola) Miller after starting a relationship at the start of 2020.

Jeff’s ex-wife

Jeff celebrated his silver wedding anniversary with novelist and philanthropist Mackenzie Scott (25 years) before filing for divorce in 2019, by announcing it on Twitter.

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."

The couple initially tied the knot after meeting in San Francisco and moved to Seattle one year later where they started Amazon from their garage.

Mackenzie supported Jeff through the development of the company by driving them across the country and even arranged one of Amazon’s first freight contracts while working in a Starbucks.

Work-aside, Jeff and Mackenzie had an immensely private family life with their before Jeff four children together, three sons and an adopted daughter, but highlighted that their opposing personalities (Jeff being an extrovert, her being closed-off) made them work.

Despite their marriage ending, Mackenzie still profited majorly from her 4% ownership of Amazon as her net worth, as of 2023, stands at 31.2 billion USD.

Mackenzie re-married briefly for two years to a science teacher called Dan Jewett, but they split this year.