Michael Sanchez, the brother of Jeff Bezos’ lover, confirmed that he made a “deal with the devil” and helped the National Enquirer break the sensational story on Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s extramarital affair.
But Michael insisted to Page Six he did it to benevolently protect Lauren — and the world’s richest man — by ensuring the news of their romance broke only after their mutual spouses were told.
But now it’s unclear whether the couple at the center of the scandal is even together anymore.
They have remained apart while Bezos’ security chief Gavin de Becker has conducted an investigation into the mole who leaked Bezos’ racy texts and below-the-belt selfies. A clandestine meeting in Manhattan between Bezos and Lauren that we reported on last month has been strongly denied by his camp.
A source told us the two “haven’t seen each other since the story broke. A lot of this has to do with their decision to lay low and spend time with their kids, who didn’t get a warning about the Enquirer story and now have to deal with the intense public interest and the paparazzi in pursuit.”
The source added, “Michael isn’t doing her and Jeff any favors by keeping his sister’s name in the press. He may genuinely believe he is defending Lauren, but in many ways he is actually doing more to … doom her relationship with Jeff.”
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the Enquirer’s parent company, AMI, paid Michael, a Hollywood manager, $200,000 for racy texts between the couple. Sanchez sniffed that he would not “dignify” rumors from anonymous sources.
But one thing he says he is sure of: He insists he was not responsible for leaking the more intimate shots of the Amazon founder’s package — which Bezos argues Enquirer editors tried to use to extort him.
Sanchez added of the lurid leak: “I may have helped the Enquirer with their story. But I never had access to the penis selfies.”