Tacky, tasteless and a vanity that’s out of this world! MAUREEN CALLAHAN skewers Vogue’s vulgar duo Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos – a pair of intergalactic-sized egos who just CANNOT read the room

Lauren Sánchez is ready for her close-up.

Not since David Geffen posted from his private yacht at the height of quarantine have we seen such an aggressively tacky, tone-deaf display of wealth, this time in the pages of Vogue.

This isn’t just a fawning profile of Sánchez and fiancé Jeff Bezos — it’s slobbering, non-critical, and as superficial as their pneumatic physiques.

Here is Sánchez, 53, on her wardrobe: ‘I’ve always found it interesting that people say, “Well, Lauren, you definitely dress more for men.” I actually dress for myself.’

‘But it works for Jeff,’ says Jeff, employing that most insufferable narcissistic tic – referring to oneself in the third person.

Sly observations are sprinkled throughout, but this is otherwise an Anna Wintour special: Questions without teeth, controversies ignored, scandals and extra-marital affairs elided.

All gilded, of course, with a hoary portfolio by Annie Leibovitz, minus irony or edge — just clichéd idolatry, Leibovitz phoning it in.

Lauren Sánchez is ready for her close-up. Not since David Geffen posted from his private yacht at the height of quarantine have we seen such an aggressively tacky, tone-deaf display of wealth, this time in the pages of Vogue.

This isn’t just a fawning profile of Sánchez and fiancé Jeff Bezos – it’s slobbering, non-critical, and as superficial as their pneumatic physiques. This is an Anna Wintour special: Questions without teeth, controversies ignored, scandals and extra-marital affairs elided. All gilded, of course, with a hoary portfolio by Annie Leibovitz, minus irony or edge – just clichéd idolatry, Leibovitz phoning it in.

It’s Jeff and Lauren in drag: Cowboy and cowgirl on their 400,000-acre Texas ranch, Lauren in a white Levi’s tank, chunky diamond earrings and her reported 30-carat-plus, $2.5-million engagement ring, clinging to Jeff with his super-tight black T-shirt, bulging biceps, cowboy hat and dead eyes.

‘I really think I am coming into who I am and I know what feels good,’ she says.

I have no idea what this means.

Writer Chloe Malle, however, uses this moment to take a cattily elegant dig at Sánchez’s somewhat gauche aesthetic.

‘Call her effect exuberant luxury,’ Malle writes, ‘a reminder that not every wealthy woman need swaddle herself in The Row.’

That is some prime bitchery right there.

Malle herself, the daughter of actress Candice Bergen and late French film director Louis Malle, is no stranger to this world.

One wonders what she and Wintour truly make of the future Mrs. Bezos, who, as noted here, is partial to the word ‘magical’ and whose favorite recent film was ‘Barbie.’

Or, for that matter, what they make of Bezos himself, the nerd-turned-billionaire who gifted Sánchez a coffee mug — purchased on Amazon, naturally — that reads: ‘Woke up sexy as hell again.’

These are among the most powerful people on the planet, gushing about their workout routines — ‘He is a monster in the gym,’ says Sánchez — their journaling habits and, not to be forgotten, their dedication to the environment.

‘I think Jeff and I are really focusing on the long-term commitment to climate,’ Sánchez explains. ‘Ten billion [in donations] is just the beginning.’

Says the fiancée of the man who owns the world’s largest yacht, which cost $500 million and has a voluptuous, long-haired figurehead that some say resembles Sánchez — though she quashes those rumors, implying that a bust of her would be… bustier.

She may pilot her private helicopters in coffin nails and heels, may be planning her own girls’ trip to outer space, but insists she remains very much grounded.

These are among the most powerful people on the planet, gushing about their workout routines, their journaling habits and, not to be forgotten, their dedication to the environment. ‘I think Jeff and I are really focusing on the long-term commitment to climate,’ Sánchez explains. ‘Ten billion [in donations] is just the beginning.’

Says the fiancée of the man who owns the world’s largest yacht, which cost $500 million and has a voluptuous, long-haired figurehead that some say resembles Sánchez — though she quashes those rumors, implying that a bust of her would be… bustier.

She may pilot her private helicopters in coffin nails and heels, may be planning her own girls’ trip to outer space, but insists she remains very much grounded.

Of her newfound philanthropy: ‘This is the most important work I’ve done, ever.’

Details matter not.

‘She’s just also a very good role model,’ Bezos purrs. ‘She keeps in touch with people. I’ve never seen her put her makeup on without calling somebody.’

Indeed, a woman to admire. To aspire to.

America, let your daughters read that no career or personal goal can compete with ‘blacking out’ at the size of a vulgarian’s engagement ring.

As for the wedding, Sánchez plays modest. ‘Is it going to be big?’ she asks. A cliffhanger for the ages.

The rest of the spread is all Lauren squeezed into designer gowns, contorting herself on the steps of a giant, diamond-cut underground clock Bezos built — ‘It represents thinking about the future,’ she says — or in ecstasy at some unnamed space-control tower, breasts out and head back, or reclining in a Ferragamo minidress in one of Jeff’s space capsules, her crow’s feet seemingly un-air-brushed.

That last detail perhaps a stab at authenticity amid otherwise ultra-glossed-up photos.

‘Our lives are pretty normal,’ Sanchez says.

A world in turmoil hits back. A sampling from social media: 

‘NOBODY CARES. Read the goddamn room.’

‘With everything going on in the world, this is who you choose to promote?’

‘STOP GLORIFYING BILLIONAIRES.’

Truly, there is no point to this article other than the one percent glorifying the 0.000000001 percent.

Which includes, in a sad marker of our ever-sinking American culture, the Kardashians.

Truly, there is no point to this article other than the one percent glorifying the 0.000000001 percent. Which includes, in a sad marker of our ever-sinking American culture, the Kardashians.

Yes, Lauren Sánchez — married first to an NFL tight end, then to Patrick Whitesell, one of the most powerful agents in Hollywood — knew she’d made it when she graduated from local TV anchor and dance-show judge to BFFs with Kris Jenner and Kim K.

Possibly the best part of this epic hate-read is the joint origin story of Sánchez and Jenner, meeting decades back in L.A. when neither had use for the other.

Jenner, we are told, first met Sánchez when she ‘and her then-husband were peddling their “Superfit with Kris and Bruce Jenner” stairclimbers’ and Sánchez was of even lesser note.

A few years ago, they met again, at very different stations in life, over a dinner at Bezos’s Beverly Hills estate.

‘We know [Sánchez and Bezos] will be in our lives forever,’ Jenner says – and I believe her. Who thinks Kris is letting this golden goosette go?

You would never know, in reading this puffery, that Bezos owns not only Amazon and private space colonizer Blue Origin but Whole Foods, the Washington Post, Audible, Zappos, Ring doorbell, robotics company Kiva, Hollywood database IMDB, MGM Studios, and One Medical.

Nor would you know that, according to internal documents leaked in 2020, Whole Foods reportedly used heat maps to spy on employees and ferret out pro-union sentiment. Or that Amazon employees are said to have their bathroom breaks strictly monitored and timed. Or that Alexa, according to 2019 reports by the New York Times, uses AI and its own human employees to eavesdrop on users.

One wonders how secure anyone, even Sánchez, can feel in Bezos’s orbit.

Though, she insists, she has no qualms about taking his name: ‘One hundred percent… I am looking forward to being Mrs. Bezos… everything’s shared.’

You would never know, in reading this puffery, that Bezos owns not only Amazon and private space colonizer Blue Origin but Whole Foods, the Washington Post, Audible, Zappos, Ring doorbell, robotics company Kiva, Hollywood database IMDB, MGM Studios, and One Medical. 

One wonders how secure anyone, even Sánchez, can feel in Bezos’s orbit. Though, she insists, she has no qualms about taking his name: ‘One hundred percent… I am looking forward to being Mrs. Bezos… everything’s shared.’

There’s an amazing vignette in which Bezos, mixing margaritas for Sánchez and Malle in his private space-themed bar, laments the absence of salt — only for an employee to materialize out of nowhere with a deli-sized amount.

‘Wow,’ Bezos says. ‘There’s like a salt genie out there!’

Or, perhaps, an un-unionized, heat-mapped staff of low-paid employees privy to every need and want at Camp Bezos.

Not that Jeff would ever. Not that he is anything other than full of goodwill and an Oprah-esque search for purpose.

‘I think there’s an interesting thing to try and do,’ Bezos says at the article’s conclusion, ‘which is to be excited about the future and to live in the present. All the future is built right here, in this moment.’

If our future is being built by these two intergalactic-sized egos – well, caveat emptor.

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