Here’s how their relationship became public and how they’ve spent their time as a couple.

The news that shocked the world

It all started on January 9, 2019 when Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, issued a joint statement on Twitter that they were getting a divorce.

“As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends,” the statement read. “If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again.”

But a mere few hours later, a second bomb dropped: Bezos was in a relationship with Sánchez.

More recently she’s worked as a helicopter pilot and founded her own aerial filming company in 2016 called Black Ops Aviation. Bezos has even hired Sánchez’s company to film footage for his rocket company, Blue Origin.

Sánchez has also had television and film roles. She hosted reality show So You Think You Can Dance and played an anchor in films like Fight Club and The Day After Tomorrow.

At that time, Sánchez was married to Patrick Whitesell, the co-CEO of WME, a Hollywood talent agency. Sánchez and Whitesell had been married since 2005, but at the time the news broke, the couple had been separated since the autumn, according to celeb news website Page Six. The couple was friends with Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos because they had houses near each other in Seattle.

The National Enquirer scandal

The National Enquirer said it had conducted a four-month investigation into Bezos and Sánchez’s relationship and had obtained texts and photos the couple had sent to each other.

The Enquirer said it had tracked the couple “across five states and 40,000 miles, tailed them in private jets, swanky limos, helicopter rides, romantic hikes, five-star hotel hideaways, intimate dinner dates and ‘quality time’ in hidden love nests.”

Page Six, which published the news a few hours before the Enquirer, reported that Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos knew that the Enquirer report was coming out and had timed their divorce announcement to get ahead of the news.

The gossip site also reported at the time that Bezos and Sánchez started dating after Bezos and MacKenzie had separated the previous fall, and that MacKenzie knew of the relationship.

The Enquirer said it had obtained “raunchy messages” and “erotic selfies” of the couple. The tabloid said it also had racy photos of both Bezos and Sánchez, including one that was too explicit to print.

Almost immediately, questions arose about the Enquirer’s motives for investigating Bezos and Sanchez and the tabloid’s connection to President Trump.

A feud has simmered for years between Trump and Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, a frequent Trump target. The Enquirer’s publisher, AMI, is run by David Pecker, a long-time Trump ally.

By the end of January, The Daily Beast reported that Bezos was funding an investigation into who had leaked his private messages to the Enquirer. Bezos’ personal head of security, Gavin de Becker, headed the investigation. De Becker said at the time that he thought the leaks were “politically motivated”, which AMI denied.

The investigation initially pointed to Michael Sánchez, Lauren’s brother and an outspoken Trump supporter, as the person who leaked the photos and texts, which Sánchez denied.

Then, in February, Bezos dropped a bomb of his own: a blog post titled “No thank you, Mr. Pecker,” in which he accused Pecker and AMI of trying to blackmail him.

Bezos wrote that the publisher had been threatening him with the publication of explicit photos he’d taken of himself unless he stopped investigating who was leaking his photos and texts to the tabloid.

AMI also demanded that Bezos no longer claim the publisher’s investigation into his personal life was influenced by political motivations, Bezos wrote. As a result, Bezos published the emails he’d received from AMI.

“Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten,” Bezos wrote.

MacKenzie Bezos becomes one of the richest women in the world

Things quieted down for Bezos and Sánchez publicly for a few months, until April, when Bezos and MacKenzie finalised the terms of their divorce.

Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos both released statements on Twitter saying they had “finished the process of dissolving” their marriage and would be co-parenting their four children.

One day later, Sánchez and Whitesell filed for divorce. TMZ reported at the time that the couple asked for joint custody of their two children. The couple reportedly finalised their divorce that October.

Going public

Other guests reportedly included Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and the founder of Thrive Capital, Josh Kushner, along with his supermodel wife, Karlie Kloss.

Bezos and Sánchez were then seen on fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg’s sailing yacht off the coast of Italy. The couple appears to be close friends with von Furstenberg and her husband, IAC Chairman Barry Diller.

Around the holidays, the couple jetted off to French-speaking Caribbean island St. Barths, relaxing on yachts and meandering around the island with Sánchez’s son, Nikko Gonzalez.

A trip to India – and a Sánchez family feud

Sánchez came along on Bezos’ visit to Mahatma Gandhi’s tomb in January 2020, and walked the red carpet with Bezos at an Amazon Prime Video event in Mumbai too.

A few weeks later, Sanchez travelled with Bezos to another international event – this time, a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, France.

However since February, Bezos has been embroiled in a legal row with Michael, Sánchez’s brother.

Michael filed a defamation lawsuit against Bezos in February, claiming Bezos and De Becker had falsely accused him of providing Bezos’ nude photos to the National Enquirer. Michael claimed in the suit that Bezos told journalists he had handed over the images to the tabloid, but he says he never had the photos in his possession.

Bezos said in a court filing of his own that the suit amounted to “extortion”, and sought to dismiss Sánchez’s lawsuit under a California law that’s intended to protect against frivolous lawsuits.

A judge has since tossed Sánchez’s defamation suit, citing lack of evidence.

In the lawsuit, Sánchez used the word “fiancé” to describe Bezos’ relationship to Lauren Sánchez, implying that the couple is engaged. But Bezos isn’t described as Sánchez’s fiancé anywhere else in the suit, and Bezos and Sánchez have never confirmed that they’re engaged.

Representatives for Bezos and Sánchez did not respond to requests for comment.

Bezos buys a house for the pair to live in, and breaks records doing it

News broke in February that Bezos had reportedly bought the Warner estate, a massive Beverly Hills compound, for US$165 million. The purchase was the most expensive home sale in California history.

Before the sale, The New York Post reported that Bezos and Sánchez had been house-hunting in Los Angeles and touring mansions throughout the area for weeks.

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This article originally appeared on Business Insider.