Indeed, Sánchez is not shy about her physique. The prow of Koru—Maori for “new beginnings”—is adorned with a voluptuous figurehead, one that has been gleefully suggested in the press to be carved in Sánchez’s image. “I’m very flattered, but it’s not,” said Sánchez. In fact, the figurehead is one of Bezos’s favorite mythological figures, Freyja, Norse goddess of love, fertility, war, and gold. “If it was me…” Sánchez joked, and made a gesture of having larger breasts.
Much has been made of Bezos’s evolution from round-shouldered online bookseller to Tony Stark titan of industry and the third richest man in the world. Once insular and press-shy, he formed a tight cocoon around Amazon, his then wife, MacKenzie, and their four children in Seattle. Now it’s as if he’s emerged from his chrysalis, a swole monarch, no longer Amazon CEO (a role he ceded in 2021) but an empty nester who is venturing not only into the Adriatic but into outer space. Sánchez, by all accounts, is the perfect partner for all of it—unbridled in her enthusiasm (seven people I spoke to described her as a “force”) but also socially adept, attentive, a diplomat of a kind. “Lauren has amazing intuition, almost witchy powers in that regard,” says Bezos. “She sees things that other people don’t see. She’s really very sensitive to other people and what they’re thinking.”
“She’s a sparkler in Jeff’s life,” says Barry Diller, who with his wife, Diane von Furstenberg, are two of Bezos’s closest friends and will host a second engagement party for the couple at their home in Beverly Hills. “They’re very in love with each other—they’re demonstrably in love,” he adds. “She’s lit him up in the nicest ways. She’s a great stimulant.”
“Since she’s been with Jeff, she is more peaceful and more calm. She appears more herself,” says her sister, Elena Sánchez Blair, sounding a note I heard often: that Sánchez is delighted by her new life but resolutely the person she’s always been—trained on her family and those she loves. “You see her, this beautiful force all done up in ball gowns, but the truth is most of the time we are on the couch in sweats and yoga pants, playing Sloppy Dice or Heads Up on our phones,” Sánchez Blair tells me.
Bezos seems the one who has changed—and that’s by his own account. “She has really helped me put more energy into my relationships,” he says. “She’s always encouraging me: ‘Call your kids. Call your dad. Call your mom.’ And she’s also just a very good role model. She keeps in touch with people. I’ve never seen her put makeup on without calling somebody. Usually her sister.”