Billionaire Jeff Bezos marries Lauren Sanchez in lavish Venice ceremony
The sky itself is no limit for billionaire Jeff Bezos and fiancee Lauren Sanchez, who have travelled into space, and expectations were about as high ahead of their wedding in Venice on Friday.
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One of the world's most enchanting cities as a backdrop? Check.
Star-studded guest list and tabloid buzz? Of course.
Local flavour? You bet.
And then, time to tie the knot. The couple held their wedding ceremony Friday night, and Sanchez posted to Instagram a photo of herself beaming in a white gown as she stood alongside a tuxedo-clad Bezos, the world's fourth-richest man.
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It was the second day of events spread across the Italian lagoon city, which added complexity to what would have been a massive logistical undertaking even on dry land.
Dozens of private jets had flocked to Venice's airport, and yachts pulled into the city's famed waterways. Athletes, celebrities, influencers and business leaders converged to revel in extravagance that was as much a testament to the couple's love as to their extraordinary wealth.
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A post shared by Lauren Sánchez Bezos (@laurensanchezbezos)
The heady hoopla recalled the 2014 wedding in Venice of actor George Clooney to human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin, when adoring crowds lined the canals and hundreds of well-wishers gathered outside City Hall.
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Not so for these nuptials, which became a lightning rod for small, colourful protests. But any desire to dampen the prevailing fever pitch hadn't materialised as of Friday. Instead, the glitterati were partying and the paparazzi were jostling for glimpses of the gilded gala.
On Friday afternoon, Sanchez emerged from her hotel wearing a silk scarf on her head and blew a kiss to journalists before stepping into her water taxi. It carried her through the canals to San Giorgio island, across the lagoon basin from St Mark's Square, where the couple held their ceremony on Friday night.
Bezos followed two hours later.
Then, in a string of water taxis, came their illustrious guests — Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian, Ivanka Trump, Tom Brady, Bill Gates, Queen Rania of Jordan, Leonardo DiCaprio and more.
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Kim and Khloe Kardashian leave a hotel ahead of the wedding celebrations of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez (Luigi Costantini/AP)
Paparazzi trailed on their own boats, trying to capture them all on camera.
There are some who say these two shouldn't have been married in this city.
They characterise the wedding as a decadent display of wealth in a world with growing inequality, and argue it's a shining example of tourism taking precedence over residents' needs, particularly affordable housing and essential services.
Venice is also one of the cities most vulnerable to rising sea levels from climate change.
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Stella Faye, a researcher at a university in Venice, said: 'Venice is not just a pretty picture, a pretty postcard to please the needs and wants of the elite or of mass tourists, but it is an alive city, made of people who want to actually live there.'
About a dozen Venetian organisations — including housing advocates, anti-cruise ship campaigners and university groups — are protesting under the banner 'No Space for Bezos,' a play on words referring to his space exploration company Blue Origin and the bride's recent space flight.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump attended the wedding (Antonio Calanni/AP)
Greenpeace unfurled a banner in St Mark's Square denouncing Bezos for paying insufficient taxes.
Activists floated a bald-headed Bezos-inspired mannequin down Venice's Grand Canal atop an Amazon delivery box, its hands clenching fake cash.
Authorities — from Venice's mayor to the nation's tourism minister — have dismissed the outcry, saying it ignores the visibility and economic boost the wedding has brought.
'There will be photos everywhere, social media will go wild over the bride's dress, over the ceremony,' Italy's tourism minister, Daniela Santanche, told the AP.
'All of this translates into a massive free publicity campaign. In fact, because they will spend a lot of money, they will enrich Venice — our shopkeepers, artisans, restaurateurs and hotels. So it's a great opportunity both for spending and for promoting Italy in the world.'
As Amazon's chief executive, Bezos usually avoided the limelight, frequently delegating announcements and business updates to his executives. Today, he has a net worth of 234 billion dollars, according to Forbes.
Protests included a mannequin, resembling Jeff Bezos, being floated in a canal in Venice (Click News via AP)
In 2019, he announced he was divorcing his first wife, MacKenzie Scott, just before the National Enquirer published a story about an affair with Sanchez, a former TV news anchor. Sanchez filed for divorce the day after Bezos's divorce was finalised.
He stepped down as chief executive of Amazon in 2021, saying he wished to spend more time on side projects, including Blue Origin; The Washington Post, which he owns; and his philanthropic initiatives.
Sitting beside Sanchez during an interview with CNN in 2022, he announced plans to give away the majority of his wealth during his lifetime.
Last week, a Venetian environmental research association issued a statement saying Bezos's Earth Fund was supporting its work with an 'important donation'.
Corila, which seeks protection of the Venetian lagoon system, said contact began in April, well before any protests.
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The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘A marker of luxury and arrogance': why gravity-defying boobs are back – and what they say about the state of the world
It was, almost, a proud feminist moment. On inauguration day in January, the unthinkable happened. President Trump, the biggest ego on the planet, was upstaged by a woman in a white trouser suit – the proud uniform of Washington feminists, worn by Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in solidarity with the traditional colour of the suffragettes. In the event, the white trouser suit barely got a mention. The show was stolen by what was underneath: Lauren Sánchez's cleavage, cantilevered under a wisp of white lace. The breasts of the soon-to-be Mrs Jeff Bezos were the ceremony's breakout stars. The only talking point that came close was Mark Zuckerberg's inability to keep his eyes off them. Call it a curtain raiser for a year in which breasts have been – how to put this? – in your face. Sydney Sweeney's pair have upstaged her acting career to the point that she wears a sweatshirt that says 'Sorry for Having Great Tits and Correct Opinions'. Bullet bras are making a sudden comeback, in sugar-pink silk on Dua Lipa on the cover of British Vogue and nosing keen as shark fins under fine cashmere sweaters at the Miu Miu show at Paris fashion week. Perhaps most tellingly, Kim Kardashian, whose body is her business empire, has made a 180-degree pivot from monetising her famous backside to selling, in her Skims lingerie brand, push-up bras featuring a pert latex nipple – with or without a fake piercing – that make an unmissable point under your T-shirt. Not since Eva Herzigova was in her Wonderbra in 1994 – Hello Boys – have boobs been so, well, big. It is oddly tricky to discuss boobs without sounding as if you are in a doctor's surgery or a fraternity house. The word breasts is rather formal. Boobs is fond and familiar, which feels right, but sniggery, which doesn't. Bosoms are what you see in period dramas. Knockers, jugs, melons, hooters, fun bags? Whatever we call them, they are full of contradictions. Men see them and think of sex; babies see them and think of food. They contain a liquid without which the human race could not until recently have survived, but they are also one of the most tumour-prone parts of the body. You can admire them in the Uffizi, the Louvre and the National Gallery, but they are banned on Instagram (Free the nipple!). They are nursing Madonnas, and they are Madonna in a conical bra. They are topless goddesses and top shelf; entirely natural yet extremely rude; and they are, right now, absolutely everywhere. There is a whole lot going on here. In America, the impact of the Trump administration is going way beyond policy, reshaping culture at a granular level. The Maga ruling class has a thirst for busty women in tight clothes, which fuses something new – what Zuckerberg has called 'masculine energy' – with nostalgia for 1950s America. (The 'again' in Make America Great Again may not have a date stamp, but it comes with a white picket fence.) As a symbol of fertility, full breasts are catnip to a regime obsessed with breeding and keen to limit reproductive freedoms. Boobs are in the eye of the storm of the current gender fluidity rollback, too. Nothing says boys will be boys and women should look like women more than Bezos's Popeye biceps next to Sánchez's lace-edged curves. They used to say that a picture was worth a thousand words; in today's ultra-visual culture, that rate of exchange has steepened. The fact that a culture that was, until a few years ago, sensitively exploring gender as a complex issue has now regressed to the level of teenage boys watching American Pie for the first time says everything about how things have changed. Since 1962, when Timmie Jean Lindsey, a mother of six from Texas, became the first woman in the world to have silicone implants, breasts have been a lightning rod for the battleground between what is real and what is fake. The debate that catapulted Pamela Anderson to fame in the 1990s has become one of the defining issues of our time. It turns out that breasts, and beauty, were just the start. Artificial intelligence has jumped the conversation on. From Mountainhead to Black Mirror, we are now talking not just about real boobs v fake ones but about real brains v fake ones. In the battle between old-school flesh and blood and the prospect of a new, possibly improved, version of the human race, breasts have been leading the culture for 63 years. In a nutshell, the world is losing its mind over the girls. 'The State of the Union is … boobs' was the New York Post's succinct verdict on the charms of Sweeney, while Amy Hamm wrote in the National Post that they were 'double-D harbingers of the death of woke'. On inauguration day, onlookers were divided between outrage at an inappropriate level of nudity and admiration for how Sánchez's 'Latina auntie' energy showed her, um, balls. All of which makes it a weird time to have breasts. When writer Emma Forrest saw the author portrait taken for the jacket of her new novel, Father Figure, her first thought was, 'Oh wow, my boobs look huge.' She is wearing a plain black T-shirt, 'so that must be OK, right? It's not like I'm wearing a corset. I feel I should be allowed to have people review my books without having an issue with my boobs. But who knows.' Breasts have always had the power to undermine women. After a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, Sarah Thornton found herself with much bigger breasts than she had wanted – having asked for 'lesbian yoga boobs', she woke up with D cups – and wrote her book, Tits Up, to make peace with her 'silicone impostors' by investigating their cultural history. Breasts, she writes, are 'visible obstacles to equality, associated with nature and nurture rather than reason and power'. Since she was a teenager, Forrest has lived with 'the assumption that having big breasts means being messy, being sexually wild, having no emotional volume control. I have had to learn to separate my own identity from what other people read on to my body.' It's Messy: On Boys, Boobs and Badass Women is the title of Amanda de Cadenet's memoir, in which she writes about developing into 'the teenage girl whose body made grown women uncomfortable and men salivate', recalling the destabilising experience of having a body that brought her overnight success – she was a presenter on The Word at 18 – while simultaneously somehow making her the butt of every joke. If the length of our skirts speaks to the stock market – short hemlines in boom times, long when things are bad – breasts are political. Thirty years after the French Revolution, Eugène Delacroix painted Liberty Leading the People with a lifesize, bare-breasted Liberty hoisting the French flag, leading her people to freedom. A century and a half later, women burning their bras at the 1968 protest against the Miss America pageant became one of the defining images of the feminist movement – never mind the fact that it never happened. (Protesters threw copies of Playboy, and some bras, in a trash can, but starting a fire on a sidewalk was illegal.) Intriguingly, decades when big breasts are in fashion seem to coincide with times of regression for women. Think about it. The 1920s: flat-chested flapper dresses and emancipation. The 1950s: Jayne Mansfield and women being pushed away from the workplace and back into the home. The 1970s: lean torsos under T-shirts, and the women's liberation movement. Sarah Shotton started out as an assistant in Agent Provocateur's raunchy flagship store in Soho, London, in 1999, when she was 24, and rose to become creative director of the lingerie brand in 2010. Her 15 years in charge have seen Agent Provocateur rocked by the changing tides of sexual politics. In 2017, the year #MeToo hit the headlines, the company went into administration, before finding a new distributor. Shotton says, 'I have always loved sexy bras, and it's what we are known for. But there was a time when it felt like that wasn't OK. Soon after #MeToo, we had a campaign lined up to shoot and the phone started ringing with all the agents of the women who were supposed to be in it, pulling their clients out, saying they didn't want to be seen in that way.' But the brand's revenues have doubled in the past three years. 'Last year we shot a film with Abbey Clancy and Peter Crouch, where she's in really sexy lingerie and he's playing pool. I remember saying, 'This is either going to go down like a ton of bricks or people are going to love it.'' It seems as if they loved it: the company's sales are expected to hit £50m this year. 'I think a younger generation now want what we had in the 1990s and 2000s,' Shotton says, 'because it looks like we had more fun. My generation of women had childhood on our BMX bikes, then when we were in our 20s, your job finished when you left the office and you could go out drinking all night if you wanted to. I think we really did have more fun. Life just didn't feel as complicated as it does now.' The bestselling bras, she says, are currently 'anything plunging and push-up. Racy stuff. Our Nikita satin bra, which is like a shelf for your boobs and only just covers your nipples.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion The legacy of the 1990s, when feminism and raunch became bedfellows, has left the world confused about breasts. Before that, the lines were pretty simple – the flappers throwing off their corsets, the feminists protesting over Page 3. But Liz Goldwyn, film-maker and sociologist (and granddaughter of Samuel Goldwyn Jr), whose first job was in a Planned Parenthood clinic and who collects vintage lingerie, doesn't fit neatly into any of the old categories. 'Third-wave feminists like myself grew up in the riot grrrl and burlesque days, where we embraced corsets and kink along with liberation and protest,' she says. Goldwyn collects, loves and wears vintage lingerie, while abhorring Spanx. 'I would rather go to the dentist than wear shapewear, but I find nothing more satisfying than to colour-coordinate my lingerie drawers.' Wearing a corset, she says, 'makes me breathe with more presence'. Breasts have always been about money and class as well as sex and gender. The Tudor gentlewomen who wore dresses cut to expose their small, pert breasts were proudly indicating they had the means to afford a wet nurse. Sánchez's inauguration outfit – tiny white Alexander McQueen trouser suit, lots of gravity-defying cleavage – 'taps into the fact that people who are that wealthy can have the impossible,' Forrest says. 'It is pretty difficult to have a super-slim body and big breasts. Her body is a physical manifestation of something much bigger, which is the hyper-wealthy living in a different reality to the rest of us. The planet might be doomed, but they can go to space. It's a 'fuck you' marker of luxury and arrogance.' The vibe, Goldwyn agrees, 'is very dystopian 1980s Dynasty meets 'let them eat cake'. I would never disparage another woman's body, but I have no problem disparaging her principles … in claiming to stand for women's empowerment, yet attending an inauguration for an administration that has rolled back reproductive freedoms.' Surgery – the blunt fact of boobs being a thing you can buy – has crystallised the idea of breasts as femininity's biggest commercial hit. (They are at times referred to, after all, as prize assets.) The primitive – survival of the fittest, in the thirsty sense of the word – is now turbocharged by enlargement is the most popular cosmetic surgery in the UK, with 5,202 procedures carried out in 2024, according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. When Jacqueline Sanchez Taylor interviewed women in 2010 about their experiences of breast augmentation for her research into the sociology of cosmetic surgery, 'a lot of young women told me they were doing it for status'. Not to show off, but to show 'they had made it. They felt they were being good citizens: going out there and making money, but also wanting to play the part of being feminine.' Breasts, Sanchez Taylor says, 'say everything about who a woman is: about femininity and fertility, class and age.' They are at the centre of the industrial complex that has grown up around female beauty. 'I remember sitting in a consultation with a woman and her surgeon, and him saying cheerfully, 'Oh yes, you've got fried egg breasts. But we can fix that.'' Fake is no longer scandalous or transgressive. The vocabulary of plastic surgery has been gentled and mainstreamed to become the more palatable cosmetic surgery. The older women of the Kardashian family have been coy about having had work, but 27-year-old Kylie Jenner recently shared on social media the details of her breast surgery – down to the implant size, placement and name of surgeon. Unreal is here to stay, and the new battle line is between perfection and imperfection. The generation growing up now, who have never seen a celebrity portrait that wasn't retouched, have never used a camera that doesn't have filters, take 20 selfies and delete 19 of them, have an intolerance of imperfection. To put it bluntly: normal looks weird to them. So it seems natural – even if it isn't really natural – that celebrity boobs are getting bigger even as celebrity bodies are getting smaller. 'We are in a really weird place with the body, particularly in America,' says Emma McClendon, assistant professor of fashion studies at St John's University in New York, who in 2017 curated the New York exhibition The Body: Fashion and Physique. 'What we are seeing now is definitely not about the bigger body. It is a very controlled mode of curviness, which emphasises a tiny waist.' (Very 1950s coded, again.) 'GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are having a cultural impact on all of us, whether or not you or people you know are on them,' McClendon says. 'The incredible shrinking of the celebrity body that is happening in America is creating this idea that your body is endlessly fixable and tweakable.' Hairlines can be regrown, fat melted, wrinkles erased. For most of the past half-century, fashion has held out against boobs. With a few notable exceptions – Vivienne Westwood, rest her soul, adored a corset-hoisted embonpoint – modern designers have mostly ignored them. Karl Lagerfeld insisted his models should glissade, ballerina style, and disliked any curves that veered from his clean, elongated lines. And yet in the past 12 months, the bullet bra has come back. A star turn on the Miu Miu catwalk was presaged last year by a cameo in the video for Charli xcx's 360, worn by photographer and model Richie Shazam, and by influencer and singer Addison Rae, whose lilac velvet corset creamed into two striking Mr Whippy peaks at a Young Hollywood party last summer. To seal the revival, none other than the queen of fashion – Kate Moss – wore a bullet bra under her Donna Karan dress in a viral fashion shoot with Ray Winstone for a recent issue of Perfect magazine. Perhaps the bullet bra, which can be seen as weaponising the breast, is perfect for now. 'Fashion is the body, and clothes turn the body into a language,' McClendon says. The bullet bra is steeped in a time when 'domestic femininity was repackaged as glamour', Forrest says. 'A postwar era, coming back from scarcity and lack and hunger, when Sophia Loren was sold as a kind of delicious luxury truffle.' Goldwyn is a fan. 'A perfectly seamed bullet bra lifts my spirits (and my breasts) if I am in a foul mood,' she says. 'I hope we can reclaim it as symbolic of resistance, defiance and armour.' In the backstage scrum with reporters after she had made bullet bras the centrepiece of her Miu Miu catwalk show, Miuccia Prada said the collection was about 'femininity', then she corrected herself: 'No – femininities.' Prada has been using her clothes to articulate the complexities of living and performing femininity for decades, and this season it led her to the bullet bra. 'What do we need, in this difficult moment for women – to lift us up?' she laughed, gesturing upwards with her hands, surrounded by pointy-chested models. 'It's like a new fashion. I think the girls are excited.' Half a millennium after Leonardo da Vinci painted the Madonna Litta, his 1490 painting of the Virgin Mary baring her right breast to feed Christ, which now hangs in the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, another Madonna found her breasts in the spotlight. In the late 1980s, Jean Paul Gaultier was experimenting with conical bras in his Paris shows. 'He took inspiration from his grandmother's structured undergarments,' says fashion historian Amber Butchart, 'and used them to herald self-liberation. I don't generally like the word empowering – it doesn't tend to mean much – but that was very much the idea.' In 1989, while Madonna was preparing for her 1990 Blond Ambition world tour, she phoned Gaultier and asked him to design the wardrobe. On the opening night, in Japan, Madonna tore off her black blazer to reveal that iconic baby-pink satin corset with conical cups. 'Do you believe in love? Well, I've got something to say about it,' she declared, before launching into Express Yourself. The silhouette, which could be seen all the way from the cheap seats, would end up scandalising the pope and costing the world's biggest female pop star a lucrative Pepsi deal. Boobs have always been good at capturing our attention, and they have it right now. Hello again, boys.
Times
43 minutes ago
- Times
Jeff Bezos wedding: guests watch on as vows exchanged
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos have exchanged vows at their extravagant wedding ceremony, to the applause of their star-studded guests in Venice. The bride wore a long Dolce & Gabbana gown with button embellishments and lace sleeves inspired by the dress Sophia Loren wore in the 1958 film Houseboat. Guests had been welcomed to the Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore, where the ceremony took place, to the sound of Matteo Bocelli, the son of the Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli, singing Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling in Love. To applause from partygoers, a female singer followed up with gospel-tinged version of Steve Winwood's Higher Love and Candi Staton's You've Got the Love. Sánchez Bezos had earlier left the luxury Aman hotel on Venice's Grand Canal to head for the wedding wearing a headscarf and large sunglasses which again bore a striking resemblance to Loren. She was followed by Bezos who stepped into a motor launch in which champagne in an ice bucket had been placed minutes earlier by staff at the hotel. Earlier in the evening, the couple's guests, enjoying a drink in the garden of the St Regis hotel before heading to the weekend's main event, were joined by a falconer and a falcon to ward off seagulls, which are known to steal snacks in Venice. After Ivanka Trump and Queen Rania of Jordan left the hotel to head for the party, Leonardo DiCaprio was seen leaving the Gritti Palace hotel with a baseball cap pulled down over his face, prompting groans from photographers positioned on boats on the Grand Canal. Soon after the newlyweds exchanged vows, Vogue's front digital cover was released with Sánchez Bezos featured in her wedding dress. The Italian designer Domenico Dolce had been seen arriving at the Aman on Thursday afternoon, fueling speculation that the fashion duo Dolce & Gabbana had dressed Sánchez Bezos for the wedding. It later emerged that Sánchez Bezos had been dreaming up the wedding dress design with Dolce & Gabbana a year and a half ago. 'It went from, 'I want a simple, sexy modern dress' to 'I want something that evokes a moment, and where I am right now',' Sánchez Bezos told the magazine. 'It is a departure from what people expect… but it's very much me.' Her public Instagram was then left with only three posts remaining on her feed — a picture of Sánchez Bezos in her pre-wedding dress, a post from her bachelorette party and a quote reading: 'It's never too late to be what you might have been.' She also changed her Instagram name, adding the second surname 'Bezos'. Venice town hall officials have said the wedding will have no legal status under Italian law since a marriage application was not registered in the city, raising speculation the couple have previously married in a private ceremony in the US. Around 30 riot police with shields were stationed in the small, walled-off public section of the island in case protesters arrived to disrupt the wedding. • Gallery: the wedding in pictures Bezos arrived in Venice on Thursday night and lavished praise on the lagoon city that has been blighted by days of protest over his star-studded, three-day wedding party. 'We love Venice, look at this!' he told The Times, waving his arms around him as he sped down the Grand Canal in a water taxi beside his bride-to-be. 'It can't exist and yet here it is!' the Amazon tycoon added as he passed The Times's boat. ANTONIO CALANNI/AP Bezos, 61, and Sánchez Bezos, 55, a journalist, were on their way to the first party of their nuptials — an event dubbed 'Jeff in Venice' by locals. Throughout the day on Friday, A-list invitees were seen out and about in Venice. Khloé Kardashian and her mother, Kris Jenner, were spotted shopping in Chanel as Khloé celebrated her 41st birthday. Orlando Bloom, the actor, was seen sharing a water taxi with Tom Brady, the former NFL player, after eating breakfast on the terrace of the luxury Gritti Palace hotel — where earlier Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King, the CBS anchor, had been seen eating. Sydney Sweeney, the Euphoria actress, was also pictured roaming the streets of Venice hours before the wedding was due to begin. Other guests to have arrived on Thursday include Bill Gates, Kim Kardashian and the singer Usher. Tom Brady GUGLIELMO MANGIAPANE/REUTERS Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner LUIGI COSTANTINI/AP Before Bezos and Sánchez Bezos left the Aman Hotel on the Grand Canal for the Madonna dell'Orto cloister on Thursday — the location of the first party — two well-dressed women in a water taxi came alongside a boat containing photographers and handed over ice creams and cold water. 'From Jeff and Lauren,' said one of the women. The following day, a camera crew and group of tourists thought they had lucked out by spotting the Amazon boss roaming the streets, with social media users sharing footage of who they thought was Bezos. It was later revealed the sighting was of Cagdas Halicilar, who quit his job last year to become a full-time Bezos lookalike, and who has since secured a role in a Netflix show. The couple will round off the weekend with a party on Saturday at Venice's former shipyard — the Arsenale, which is set to be filled with 80,000 roses, according to Italian media. San Giorgio Maggiore is ideal for a wedding party. When the Vatican decided to enter Venice's architecture Biennale exhibition, it commissioned ten architects to build avant garde chapels among the trees, including one by the British architect Norman Foster. The weather, the one thing even one of the world's richest men cannot plan for, has been far from ideal. A-listers were forced to take cover during Thursday's pre-wedding party as a thunderstorm struck the lavish event at the Madonna dell'Orto, ultimately bringing the party to an early end. For the rest of the weekend, a red alert for extreme weather has been issued with temperatures expected to hit close to 40C. Anti-Bezos protesters are also looking to rain on the wedding's parade, with campaigners No Space For Bezos planning a flash mob protest over the next two days, while a march is scheduled for Saturday at the main Santa Lucia railway station. Extinction Rebellion staged a protest in St Mark's Square on Thursday afternoon, in which an activist unfurled a banner stating 'The One Per Cent Ruins The World', a reference to Bezos's estimated $224 billion fortune. The activist was later detained by police. Over at the supporters' club of local football team Venezia, a group of men enjoying mid-morning glasses of white wine with ice said they did not agree with the protests. 'Why shouldn't they get married? For us it's meant more police, less rubbish and fewer pickpockets,' said gondolier Roberto Orio, 63. 'My only gripe is I wasn't invited,' said retired postman Livio Cappello, 68.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
She's living her best life! Deborra-Lee Furness cuts a stylish figure in Venice as she attends lavish Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos wedding - after finalising divorce from Hugh Jackman
Deborra-Lee Furness was all smiles on Saturday as she celebrated the union between Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos. The Australian producer, 69, who recently finalised her divorce from ex-husband Hugh Jackman, was spotted leaving her hotel with other A-list guests. She boarded a water taxi to head to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore for the lavish nuptials, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Tom Brady and Tommy Hilfiger. Deborra-Lee looked to be having the time of her life in Italy as she slipped into a very conservative black gown with sheer shoulder panels. The actress kept her accessories to a minimum, opting for a simple gold bracelet and dangling earrings. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. She went with a no-makeup-makeup look and coiffed her short silver tresses into an edgy style. Daily Mail revealed on Tuesday that Hugh and Deborra-Lee had finalised their divorce a month after filing. A judgment of divorce was filed on June 12, making it official. However, the document was not made public until June 23. The divorce was essentially disposed of two weeks ago, but the judge needed to sign off on the judgment after a proposed judgment was entered. Deborra-Lee, who has two adopted children with the Wolverine actor, has received a 'handsome spousal support payment,' according to an insider. 'A settlement was reached that Deborra is pleased with which includes a handsome spousal support payment,' they revealed. 'There was some back and forth regarding this financial agreement but, in the end, she got what she believed she deserved. 'Both are coming out of this financially secure. There is not going to be any drama. This gives closure that she needed.' Last month, Daily Mail exclusively broke the news of Hugh and Deborra-Lee filing for divorce to officially terminate their 27-year marriage. Hugh has been dating his former The Music Man co-star Sutton Foster for months, although the timeline of when they began dating has never been confirmed. Meanwhile, Deborra-Lee appears to be making the most of life as she enjoyed the glitz and glam of the three-day Bezos-Sanchez wedding in Venice. The US journalist, 55, and Amazon founder, 61, tied the knot in a lavish ceremony in Venice, Italy on Saturday, saying 'I do' in front of their A-list friends. Lauren has already shared the first look at her stunning wedding dress from her and Jeff's $20 million Venetian wedding in front of their glamorous celebrity pals. The bride took to Instagram moments after saying her vows to share a photo of the couple together, where she showed off her glamorous Dolce & Gabbana gown. Described as the 'wedding of a century', the Amazon founder and former journalist have welcomed nearly 200 VIPs to Venice for three days of lavish celebrations. Jeff and Lauren welcomed a slew of their famous friends to witness the nuptials, including Gayle King, Oprah Winfrey, Ivanka Trump, Orlando Bloom, and Usher. Leonardo DiCaprio, Sydney Sweeney, Tom Brady, Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Kendall Jenner, and Kylie Jenner, amongst others, also attended.
