Jeff Bezos Reportedly Announced Split From Wife Because ‘Erotic’ Photos Of His Affair Were Going Public

Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos, who just announced his split from his wife of 25 years, has reportedly been dating a TV news anchor and only released a divorce announcement because “embarrassing photos” that would expose his fling were about to go public.

The billionaire, who’s been married to MacKenzie Bezos for over two decades, has been seeing former host of Fox 11’s Good Day LA and helicopter pilot Lauren Sanchez since at least the fall, according to the Daily Mail. Sanchez, 49, is married to Hollywood talent mogul Patrick Whitesell. Photos that will allegedly disclose their months-long affair are set to hit the newsstands this Thursday in the National Enquirer magazine’s new issue, as they claim to “exposes WHAT REALLY tore apart Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie after 25 years.”

Bezos and his novelist wife released a joint statement on his Twitter account announcing the split, which appeared to be amicable as they said they remain “a family” and will carry on being “cherished friends.” According to the Enquirer, the 54-year-old billionaire was unfaithful towards his wife for months, and even whisked “his mistress off to exotic destinations on his $65 million private jet” and sent her “raunchy messages and erotic selfies.”

The magazine claimed to have trailed Bezos for four months in what they dubbed their “largest investigation” with their photographer spotting the duo hanging out together multiple times. The magazine, whose CEO is David Pecker, a Trump ally who has made his hatred for the Bezos-owned Washington Post very public, alleges that the affair went on behind the back of both their spouses.

Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos May Lose Half Of His $137 Billion Because He Was Cheating on His Wife With His Friend's Wife; How Tony Gonzalez Fits Into All This (Photos) https://t.co/fdkkGpYPYg pic.twitter.com/1rlK8xQH7W

— Robert Littal BSO (@BSO) January 9, 2019

However, a source close to the Bezos family told the Daily Mail that the couple “worked very hard” on their relationship before opting for a divorce — which goes along the same lines of their statement that said they decided to split “after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation” — and that the online mogul only started seeing Sanchez after fully separating from his wife. The two met through Sanchez’s husband, and their families started getting along because they both own properties in Seattle. Bezos’ side venture Blue Origin later hired Sanchez’s company Black Ops Aviation to do aerial photography for them.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, sources close to the former Good Day LA host also confirmed that she only began dating Bezos after splitting from her husband.

“Patrick and Lauren Sanchez have been separated for a while. Their marriage has been off and on for a while, and they tried hard to fix things, but in the fall they officially separated. She had told Patrick that she has been recently seeing Jeff Bezos,” the unnamed source via Page Six added.