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Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos in April 2025.
Key Points
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Lauren Sánchez shares a son, Nikko Gonzalez, with Tony Gonzalez.
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Sánchez also shares her son Evan and her daughter Ella with her ex-husband Patrick Whitesell.
Lauren Sánchez isn’t just the future Mrs. Bezos—the pilot and former journalist is also a proud mom of three. She shares her oldest son, Nikko Gonzalez, with retired NFL tight end Tony Gonzalez. She also shares son Evan and daughter Ella with ex-husband Patrick Whitesell, a businessman.
The bestselling children’s book author and Whitesell reached a divorce agreement in 2019, the same year Amazon founder Jeff Bezos finalized his divorce from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, per People. After several years of dating (and going to space), the pair got engaged in May 2023. Their June 2025 wedding in Venice is set to be a star-studded affair—and officially blend their families. Bezos shares four adult children with his ex-wife, although they keep their kids out of the spotlight.
“Our lives are pretty normal,” Sánchez told Vogue of dating Bezos in a 2023 profile. “Daily life mostly revolves around our kids.”
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Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos at ‘Vanity Fair’ Oscars Party 2025
Sánchez has been in the public eye for a while, having enjoyed a career as an award-winning journalist and television personality before her whirlwind romance with the billionaire mogul. Yet despite her many ventures, none come before being a mother. She even referred to her and Bezos’ blended family as “the Brady Bunch” in a 2023 Wall Street Journal feature.
In the same interview, the licensed pilot opened up about co-parenting with her exes. “My greatest example is the relationship I have with my eldest son’s father, Tony [Gonzalez],” she said. “I learned how to co-parent with him, so I have more experience than Jeff [Bezos] might have. Tony and his wife are my best friends.”
Sánchez has proven to be her kids’ biggest cheerleader. Here’s everything she’s shared about her three children: Nikko, Evan, and Ella.
Nikko Gonzalez
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Nikko Gonzalez and Lauren Sánchez in 2024.
Sánchez and then-partner Tony Gonzalez welcomed their son, Nikko Gonzalez, on February 12, 2001. At the time, Tony played for the Kansas City Chiefs, while Sánchez worked in broadcast journalism. The couple split shortly after Nikko’s arrival.
Despite their differences, the former flames have made an active effort to be co-parents over the years. Sánchez took to Instagram Stories to post a cheerful tribute to her ex on his birthday in 2025. “Happy birthday to one of the best dads ever!!!” she wrote, sharing a sweet throwback picture of Tony holding baby Nikko. For his part, Tony shared a father-son pic of himself and Nikko attending a movie premiere to Instagram in January 2024, and the resemblance between the two was undeniable.
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Nikko Gonzalez and his father Tony Gonzalez in 2024.
Even before he was the future step-son of one of the world’s richest men, Nikko had an unusual life. His mother took advantage of her pilot’s license to give a whole new meaning to being a helicopter parent, flying over one of her oldest son’s football games while he was in high school, per the Wall Street Journal.
Sánchez, 55, is always ready with words of praise, whether celebrating Nikko’s college graduation with Bezos, Gonzalez, and Gonzalez’s wife, or cheering on the 24-year-old’s runway debut at Dolce & Gabbana’s Fall/Winter 2024-2025 menswear show.
Nikko has also had the chance to bond with his mother’s fiancé, telling Vogue in 2023, “It’s hard to beat Jeff [Bezos] at chess.” At the time, the magazine reported that the oldest Sánchez child was living with his girlfriend in Manhattan and working at Zero Bond while remotely finishing his degree at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Despite his family’s presence in the spotlight, Nikko describes their dynamic as so normal it’s “boring,” telling Vogue, “Everyone really just gets along.”
Evan Whitesell
After marrying Hollywood agent and Endeavor executive Patrick Whitesell in 2005, Sánchez welcomed her second son, Evan Whitesell, on June 22, 2006. The 19-year-old has plans to study business at the University of Miami, according to an Instagram Story Sánchez shared in 2024. If the college freshman ever gets homesick, he doesn’t have to go far to see his family, either—future stepdad Bezos, who graduated from Miami’s Palmetto High, owns three homes in Florida.
Evan and his younger sister grew up in Los Angeles and attended school there, splitting time with their father and mother on “alternating weeks” according to a Vogue profile of the future Mrs. Bezos. Despite his parent’s divorce, he remains friendly with Whitesell and his stepsiblings from his father’s marriage to model Pia Whitesell. The blended family were pictured smiling at his stepbrother Lennox’s high school graduation in June 2025, as Pia shared in her Instagram Stories.
While Evan has stayed out of the spotlight more than his older half-sibling Nikko, Sánchez revealed that her middle child takes after her in a surprising area: piloting. She gushed about his first solo helicopter flight in an August 2024 Instagram post. “I can’t believe my baby soled [sic] a helicopter today,” the proud mom wrote in the caption.
Although Evan’s sure to be busy with his studies in Miami, he still takes time to get away from it all. Snaps shared to his mother’s Instagram in a now-deleted post showed the young aviator spending time with his siblings, Sánchez, and Bezos during a family trip to Japan in April 2024.
Ella Whitesell
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Patrick Whitesell, Lauren Sanchez, and their two kids in 2011.
Sánchez and Whitesell expanded their family on January 15, 2008, welcoming their first daughter, Eleanor “Ella” Whitesell. While the pair keep their youngest child’s life as private as possible, they have shared a few glimpses of her over the years. On Ella’s 16th birthday, Sánchez penned a lengthy Instagram tribute to her “baby girl” alongside a throwback photo of her child wearing a Superman shirt.
“In your quiet strength, you’ve grown, not with loud fanfares, but with the gentle grace of a sunrise,” the former journalist wrote, adding, “Each day, you show us the beauty of dedication and the power of quiet dreams. We love you for everything you are, and everything you’re yet to become.”
In a 2023 Vogue profile, the mom of three got real about raising a teenage daughter, discussed her daily ritual of driving Ella to school. “Sometimes we tussle,” Sánchez told the outlet of their morning bonding sessions. “Other times she really opens up, and other times she says nothing and I take it in.” The publication also reported that each morning, Jeff Bezos would tell Ella, “Don’t learn anything I wouldn’t learn!” Eventually, the teen began finishing the phrase for him.
@laurenwsanchez
Lauren Sanchez and her children in her Mother’s Day 2025 Instagram Story.
On Mother’s Day 2025, Sánchez shared a rare selfie with all three of her kids to her Instagram Stories. In the picture, 17-year-old Ella sports a trendy brunette wolf cut. “My whole world in one frame 🤍” her mother wrote below the photo.
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