Lauren Sánchez Bezos Shows Off Her Pilot Skills in Helicopter Photo

Lauren Sánchez Bezos Shows Off Her Pilot Skills in Helicopter Photo

E! News·2025-09-06 06:04

Newlywed Lauren Sánchez Bezos is on cloud nine. 

Literally, two months after tying the knot with Jeff Bezos in an extravagant Italy wedding, the former journalist showed off a glimpse into her summer from the sky. 

Alongside a selfie of her in an aircraft wearing aviator sunglasses and a headset, she wrote in a Sept. 4 Instagram Story, “Collective up.”

Indeed, Lauren is an avid flyer, earning her pilot’s license in 2016, and has previously said the stratosphere—and, of course, the edge of space—is among her favorite places to be. 

“I want to be in a helicopter all the time,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017. “Life can be so chaotic with so much going on. Lift off and you’re in an energy space that no one else is in. It’s calming. When I’m up there, I’m completely satisfied. I’m like, ‘This is where I need to be.’”

Another place she has more recently found she needs to be is by the Amazon founder’s side. Since the couple tied the knot in June, Lauren has shared sporadic updates on her life, including seeing off her 18-year-old son Evan—who she shares, along with 17-year-old daughter Ella, with ex Patrick Whitesell—to college. 

“Eighteen years of early mornings, late night snacks and family dinners...and then there he was building his own dorm cabinet," Lauren wrote in an Instagram Story Aug. 20. “A small thing but in that moment I saw the start of his next chapter."

The 55-year-old summed up her feelings in three simple words, adding, "Proud, heartbroken, grateful.”

Amid their six-plus year romance, Lauren—also mom to Nikko Gonzalez, 24, with ex Tony Gonzalez—and Jeff, who shares four children with ex MacKenzie Scott, have embraced their blended family. 

“On a typical Saturday, we hang out, we have dinner with the kids, which is always fun because you never know where the conversation is going to go with this many kids," Lauren told WSJ. magazine in 2023. “We are the Brady Bunch!"

Indeed, Jeff has also shared that family time around the kitchen table is a must-have in his household. 

“I like to putter in the mornings," he explained at The Economic Club of Washington D.C. event in 2018, per CNBC. “I like to read the newspaper, I like to have coffee, I like to have breakfast with my kids before they go to school.”

For a deeper look into Lauren and Jeff’s blended family, keep reading…

(E! and CNBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)

Lauren Sánchez Bezos welcomed son Nikko Gonzalez with then-boyfriend Tony Gonzalez on Feb. 12, 2001.

At the time, Tony was the guy on the Chiefs, playing for Kansas City for 12 seasons before closing out his career with the Atlanta Falcons and retiring in 2013.

Now a football analyst, he and Lauren broke up when Nikko was still very little, but they eventually teamed up as friendly co-parents.

"That took about five years," Lauren told the Wall Street Journal in 2023, noting that they all had been together for Thanksgiving that year. "I'm not saying that being best friends with your ex is the end-all be-all. But you do need to be able to communicate."

Tony also has two daughters and a son with wife October "Tobie" Gonzalez, and when the  former NFL tight end turned 49 in February 2025, Lauren wrote in tribute to her ex on Instagram, "Happy birthday to one of the best dads ever!!!”

Nikko, meanwhile, lives in Manhattan and notes "NYC Founder" and "AI-powered research discovery" on his Instagram bio. But the University of Colorado, Boulder, graduate has also ventured into modeling, making his runway debut at Dolce & Gabbana’s Fall/Winter 2024-2025 menswear show.

"Everyone really just gets along,” Nikko told Vogue about his blended familyin 2023. “There’s no real alliances. It’s kind of boring in that way.”

Lauren married Endeavor executive Patrick Whitesell in August 2005. Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Hugh Jackman—a sampling of the groom's A-list talent agency clientele—were among the guests at their Santa Barbara, Calif., nuptials.

The couple welcomed son Evan Whitesell on June 22, 2006. Aside from bringing their kids to the occasional family-friendly event, Lauren—who was a cohost of Good Day LA from 2011 until 2017—and Patrick kept their home life pretty private.

But Lauren did share in August 2024 that Evan was following in her footsteps as a helicopter pilot.

“There’s a special kind of trust that comes when you watch your kid take off on their own for the first time,” she wrote on Instagram at the time. “It’s about letting go, but also knowing they’re more than ready. It’s terrifying, exhilarating and so deeply rewarding all at once.”

The "proud, heartbroken, grateful" mom shared on her Instagram Story in August 2025 that she had dropped Evan off for his freshman year at University of Miami.

Eleanor "Ella" Whitesell was born Jan. 15, 2008. Again, she and her brother both enjoyed a private childhood growing up in Los Angeles.

While Ella may be driving herself by now, Lauren once relished taking her teenage daughter to school in the morning. "Sometimes we tussle," she told Vogue in 2023. "Other times she really opens up, and other times she says nothing and I take it in."

Ahead of her June 2025 wedding to Jeff Bezos, Lauren shared how excited she was to see maid of honor Ella in her custom Dolce & Gabbana suit. "Ella’s original," the bride told Vogue. "She beats to her own drum."

Jeff shares four kids with ex-wife MacKenzie Scott, but only their eldest—Preston Bezos, born in 2000—has the slightest of public profiles. The exes have otherwise kept the names and ages of their other children private, though Jeff has shared that they adopted a daughter from China—and the family of six made a rare appearance at the Star Trek Beyond premiere in July 2016.

"I like to read the newspaper, I like to have coffee, I like to have breakfast with my kids before they go to school," Jeff told the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., in 2018. "My puttering time is very important to me."

Jeff and MacKenzie revealed in January 2019 that they had split up after 25 years of marriage. Within hours came the revelation that the Amazon founder had already moved on with Lauren—who had quietly separated from Patrick months beforehand. Lauren and Patrick then simultaneously filed for divorce and the terms were finalized in October 2019.

According to Lauren, once she and Jeff were living together his morning routine expanded to telling Ella every day before she left for school, "Don’t learn anything I wouldn’t learn!”

As the Los Angeles Area Emmy winner told Vogue in 2023, "Our lives are pretty normal. Daily life mostly revolves around our kids."

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