Sitting in the Royal Box — and dressed in matching outfits by Brunello Cucinelli — at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez kissed passionately without a care in the world.
It was the exciting men’s final match of Wimbeldon last Sunday, but just as many eyes were watching the hot and heavy couple as the on-court action.
“They weren’t trying to upstage anyone, they were just happy to be together — as Jeff made uncomfortably clear when he couldn’t keep his hands off Lauren!” said a Jeff insider of the Amazon CEO and his lady.
After a stretch of low-key date nights, not to mention many months spent conducting a clandestine affair behind the backs of their respective spouses, the world’s richest man and his once-illicit paramour were finally making their public debut.
(After all, you can’t get more public than sitting three rows behind Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge.)
As a friend of the couple told The Post, Jeff and Lauren feel like “a ton of bricks has been lifted off their shoulders.”
And, as Page Six reported, now that their respective divorces are finalized, the duo is altar-bound.
“Jeff and Lauren are just so happy and they want the world to know,” said a Lauren pal. “They feel free now.”
According to a second friend of Lauren’s, the couple “doesn’t even think” about pre-nups. “Both of them have more money than they could ever spend, but this doesn’t even register.”
Plus, the second friend said, “Jeff just gave up $38 billion to be with Lauren.”
“I guarantee [pre-nup] conversations will come up closer to a wedding date, but right now, it’s not even a subject.”
The pair, who sources say are constantly together, split their time among Manhattan; Seattle, where they both still have homes in the upscale suburb of Medina; and Los Angeles.
They’re said to be “bird-nesting” with their exes — meaning, Jeff’s ’ four kids stay at one home while he or ex-wife Mackenzie move in or out for days or weeks at a time, and Lauren and her ex, Hollywood power agent Patrick Whitesell, do the same with their two daughters. (She also has an 18-year-old son, Nikko, with former NFL player Tony Gonzalez.)
“The bird-nesting is actually going better than anyone expected,” said the Lauren pal. “Above everything, everyone involved in this brouhaha were concerned about protecting the kids.
“Lauren has plenty of help with the children thanks to Patrick and her family,” the pal added. “She has a huge support system, and this allows her to travel with Jeff.”
In fact, things have calmed down so much that it was Patrick who gave Jeff and Lauren the Wimbledon tickets.
“Patrick is . . . a great man, who’s got a lot of dignity. When the scandal hit and Lauren was being slut-shamed, he told friends that he didn’t want anyone attacking her,” said a Patrick source.
“His relationship with Lauren is probably better than it was before the divorce.”
When the couple are in New York City, they feel “very at home,” said the Jeff source. For date nights, “they’re really low key.”
In May, they were spotted at dinner with Lauren’s sister Elena at the West Village restaurant Emily, sharing burgers and pizza. And in June, the pair saw Tony-winning Broadway musical “Hadestown.” Prior to the show, they were spotted having a candlelit dinner at Japanese restaurant O Ya in Kips Bay.
To celebrate the Fourth of July in NYC, Lauren took her man for a ride in a helicopter she flew along with a co-pilot.
Last week, the pair attended Sun Valley — the “billionaire summer camp” in Idaho that was also attended by power players Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
It’s all a far cry from just a few months ago, when multiple sources told The Post that the scandalous romance was on “life support” as the couple stayed apart for 45 days while controversy and family drama swirled around them.
The family drama, at least, settled down after the security team responsible for protecting Jeff’s privacy cleared Lauren’s brother Michael of any involvement in the leak of Jeff’s nude selfies to the National Enquirer.
But insiders said that the feds are still digging into who did leak the photos — which is key to Jeff’s extortion allegations against AMI, the parent company of the Enquirer.
“The next few months are going to be interesting,” according to said source.
In more ways than one.
Jeff recently bought three adjoining apartments at 212 Fifth Ave., overlooking Madison Square Park, and he has given Lauren free rein to decorate. It’s expected she will work with interior designer Trip Haenisch, who designed the homes she shared with Patrick in Beverly Hills, Malibu, Santa Monica and Cabo, Mexico.
As for Jeff’s ex, Mackenzie, she is now the world’s fourth-richest woman, thanks to a divorce settlement that granted her a 4 percent stake in Amazon, which is roughly equivalent to $38 billion.
Mackenzie, a novelist, has already vowed to donate half her fortune to charity, signing on for the Giving Pledge, a philanthropic campaign launched in 2010 by billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.
(Jeff, who is worth $137 billion, has not signed the Giving pledge himself.)
“Mackenzie is doing great. She is all about her children and is a real homebody,” said someone in the know.
The Bezos and Sanchez-Whitesell children — who range from 11 years old to college age —already knew each other, as the families were all friends before Jeff and Lauren coupled up.
But there are no plans to blend the families together just yet.
“They want this to happen organically, they’re not pushing anything to happen,” the Lauren pal said of joining the two broods.
And more than anything, Jeff and Lauren are just happy to be together out in the open.
“It may not be perfect, but they’re not looking for perfection,” said the Lauren pal. “They’re happy to be moving on with their lives together. Now they can be free without worrying about anyone. The outside influences have been neutralized.”
And the pal expects the high-flying pair to get married in the not-too-distant future.
“They’re really in love. What you saw at Wimbledon is who they really are,” she said. “They’ve gone through so much to be together.”