Tacky, tasteless and a vanity that’s out of this world! MAUREEN CALLAHAN skewers Vogue’s vulgar duo Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos – a pair of intergalactic-sized egos who just CANNOT read the room

Lauren Sánchez is prepared for her close-up.

Not since David Geffen posted from his personal yacht on the peak of quarantine have we seen such an aggressively cheesy, tone-deaf show of wealth, this time within the pages of Vogue.

This is not only a fawning profile of Sánchez and fiancé Jeff Bezos — it is slobbering, non-critical, and as superficial as their pneumatic physiques.

Right here is Sánchez, 53, on her wardrobe: ‘I’ve at all times discovered it attention-grabbing that individuals say, “Nicely, Lauren, you undoubtedly gown extra for males.” I really gown for myself.’

‘But it surely works for Jeff,’ says Jeff, using that the majority unbearable narcissistic tic – referring to oneself within the third individual.

Sly observations are sprinkled all through, however that is in any other case an Anna Wintour particular: Questions with out enamel, controversies ignored, scandals and extra-marital affairs elided.

All gilded, in fact, with a hoary portfolio by Annie Leibovitz, minus irony or edge — simply clichéd idolatry, Leibovitz phoning it in.

It is Jeff and Lauren in drag: Cowboy and cowgirl on their 400,000-acre Texas ranch, Lauren in a white Levi’s tank, chunky diamond earrings and her reported 30-carat-plus, $2.5-million engagement ring, clinging to Jeff along with his super-tight black T-shirt, bulging biceps, cowboy hat and useless eyes.

‘I actually assume I’m coming into who I’m and I do know what feels good,’ she says.

I do not know what this implies.

Author Chloe Malle, nevertheless, makes use of this second to take a cattily elegant dig at Sánchez’s considerably gauche aesthetic.

‘Name her impact exuberant luxurious,’ Malle writes, ‘a reminder that not each rich lady want swaddle herself in The Row.’

That’s some prime bitchery proper there.

Malle herself, the daughter of actress Candice Bergen and late French movie director Louis Malle, is not any stranger to this world.

One wonders what she and Wintour really make of the long run Mrs. Bezos, who, as famous right here, is a fan of the phrase ‘magical’ and whose favourite current movie was ‘Barbie.’

Or, for that matter, what they make of Bezos himself, the nerd-turned-billionaire who gifted Sánchez a espresso mug — bought on Amazon, naturally — that reads: ‘Awoke horny as hell once more.’

These are among the many strongest folks on the planet, gushing about their exercise routines — ‘He’s a monster within the gymnasium,’ says Sánchez — their journaling habits and, to not be forgotten, their dedication to the atmosphere.

‘I feel Jeff and I are actually specializing in the long-term dedication to local weather,’ Sánchez explains. ‘Ten billion [in donations] is just the start.’

Says the fiancée of the person who owns the world’s largest yacht, which price $500 million and has a voluptuous, long-haired figurehead that some say resembles Sánchez — although she quashes these rumors, implying {that a} bust of her could be… bustier.

She could pilot her personal helicopters in coffin nails and heels, could also be planning her personal women’ journey to outer house, however insists she stays very a lot grounded.

Of her newfound philanthropy: ‘That is an important work I’ve carried out, ever.’

Particulars matter not.

‘She’s simply additionally an excellent function mannequin,’ Bezos purrs. ‘She retains in contact with folks. I’ve by no means seen her put her make-up on with out calling any person.’

Certainly, a girl to admire. To aspire to.

America, let your daughters learn that no profession or private aim can compete with ‘blacking out’ on the measurement of a vulgarian’s engagement ring.

As for the marriage, Sánchez performs modest. ‘Is it going to be huge?’ she asks. A cliffhanger for the ages.

The remainder of the unfold is all Lauren squeezed into designer robes, contorting herself on the steps of an enormous, diamond-cut underground clock Bezos constructed — ‘It represents interested by the long run,’ she says — or in ecstasy at some unnamed space-control tower, breasts out and head again, or reclining in a Ferragamo minidress in one in all Jeff’s house capsules, her crow’s ft seemingly un-air-brushed.

That final element maybe a stab at authenticity amid in any other case ultra-glossed-up photographs.

‘Our lives are fairly regular,’ Sanchez says.

A world in turmoil hits again. A sampling from social media: 

‘NOBODY CARES. Learn the goddamn room.’

‘With every thing occurring on the earth, that is who you select to advertise?’

‘STOP GLORIFYING BILLIONAIRES.’

Actually, there is no such thing as a level to this text aside from the one % glorifying the 0.000000001 %.

Which incorporates, in a tragic marker of our ever-sinking American tradition, the Kardashians.

Sure, Lauren Sánchez — married first to an NFL tight finish, then to Patrick Whitesell, some of the highly effective brokers in Hollywood — knew she’d made it when she graduated from native TV anchor and dance-show decide to BFFs with Kris Jenner and Kim Okay.

Probably the most effective a part of this epic hate-read is the joint origin story of Sánchez and Jenner, assembly a long time again in L.A. when neither had use for the opposite.

Jenner, we’re advised, first met Sánchez when she ‘and her then-husband had been peddling their “Superfit with Kris and Bruce Jenner” stairclimbers’ and Sánchez was of even lesser word.

A couple of years in the past, they met once more, at very totally different stations in life, over a dinner at Bezos’s Beverly Hills property.

‘We all know [Sánchez and Bezos] shall be in our lives endlessly,’ Jenner says – and I consider her. Who thinks Kris is letting this golden goosette go?

You’ll by no means know, in studying this puffery, that Bezos owns not solely Amazon and personal house colonizer Blue Origin however Complete Meals, the Washington Publish, Audible, Zappos, Ring doorbell, robotics firm Kiva, Hollywood database IMDB, MGM Studios, and One Medical.

Nor would you already know that, based on inner paperwork leaked in 2020, Complete Meals reportedly used warmth maps to spy on workers and ferret out pro-union sentiment. Or that Amazon workers are stated to have their rest room breaks strictly monitored and timed. Or that Alexa, based on 2019 studies by the New York Instances, makes use of AI and its personal human workers to listen in on customers.

One wonders how safe anybody, even Sánchez, can really feel in Bezos’s orbit.

Although, she insists, she has no qualms about taking his identify: ‘A hundred percent… I’m wanting ahead to being Mrs. Bezos… every thing’s shared.’

There’s a tremendous vignette by which Bezos, mixing margaritas for Sánchez and Malle in his personal space-themed bar, laments the absence of salt — just for an worker to materialize out of nowhere with a deli-sized quantity.

‘Wow,’ Bezos says. ‘There’s like a salt genie on the market!’

Or, maybe, an un-unionized, heat-mapped employees of low-paid workers privy to each want and wish at Camp Bezos.

Not that Jeff would ever. Not that he’s something aside from stuffed with goodwill and an Oprah-esque seek for objective.

‘I feel there’s an attention-grabbing factor to attempt to do,’ Bezos says on the article’s conclusion, ‘which is to be excited concerning the future and to stay within the current. All the long run is constructed proper right here, on this second.’

If our future is being constructed by these two intergalactic-sized egos – nicely, caveat emptor.