The Current - Venetians protest Bezos’ billionaire wedding

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Jeff Bezos is getting married in Venice, but not everyone is celebrating. As A-list guests gather, activists and locals are protesting what they see as a city being rented out to the ultra-wealthy. We hear from a protester with “No Space for Bezos,” and from a former luxury wedding planner who now writes about class and culture.

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This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. That is sound from the streets of Venice, a city that's very used to welcoming tourists, but one visitor isn't getting such a warm welcome, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. He's set to tie the knot there this weekend with his fiance and former Fox News host, Lauren Sanchez. In the run up to the wedding, demonstrators with the No Space for Bezos movement have taken to the streets and a giant banner of Bezos' head that says, if you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax was unfurled in St. Mark's Square.

Protesters say the $50 million wedding embodies global issues like over tourism, corporate greed and climate change. Thomas Kachary is one of those protesters with no space for Bezos. Tommaso, good morning. Good morning, good morning. Thank you for calling us. Tommaso, an estimated 300 million tourists go to Venice every year and your city, your Ferris City has hosted many large events and celebrity weddings like George Clooney's. What is it about Jeff Bezos and this wedding that sent you to the streets? So first of all, I want to say something. We are not some psychopathic people that are against weddings. Even because there is no wedding of Jeff Bezos

going on. He got married in the United States and he comes in Venice just for the party. And that's kind of one of the points, no? It's the view, the vision of Venice and not as a city anymore with his inhabitants, with his fragilities, with his problems. But just see Venice as a big theme park, as a very private dance hall, know that you can hire if you have a lot of money, like Jeff Bezos, you can hire all of it and that's, or if you have less money, you can hire just a little bit. And this vision of Venice, not as a city anymore, but as a big theme park for rich tourists, is exactly the thing that is killing Venice since 30 years. You know, this wedding reportedly has only 200 guests.

I can't verify that. I'm sure you can't either, but it's not one of the largest. So is there something about Bezos that is particularly offensive to you? Yeah, two things about Bezos. The thing that Bezos, his arrogance, and this is a big difference between him and George Clooney or Morata or Federica Pellegrini that got married here,

is that he hired the whole city. The message that he gives is, I am powerful and I can rent the whole city. Because 95 private jets arriving in the airport that caused problems to the airport. Five mega yachts from one end to another, five hotels, locations all around the city. The message that he gave to Venice is all of Venice is my private den.

So Venice is all for rent. And then there is another big difference. The Jeff Bezos is not George Clooney. Jeff Bezos is not a football player. Jeff Bezos is one of the billionaires that was standing in the first row at the ceremony of the election of Donald Trump at the White House. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Zuckerberg are three of the billionaires standing in the front row and they helped politically, concretely, materially with their power, with their money to reelect Donald Trump at the White House.

So your opposition is political as well as destroying the culture of Venice, as you say. Both are political, no? I should say though that not all Venetians are on your side. I mean the mayor has called the protests shameful. We also spoke with the deputy mayor Simone Venturini, who said he's welcoming the couple to Venice and the wedding presents an opportunity for investment. I want to listen to just a bit of what the deputy mayor said. All the people in Venice for 20 years are just saying that we want quality tourism instead of mass tourism on day tripper.

And now that we have a very important event with very high profile people involved, with very high income involved, the people complain about. We need to use this opportunity to say hello, guest of Mr. Bezos, why we don't cooperate together to bring investment in Venice and maybe some one of you can bring his own headquarters or innovative center of their corporation. And I think that Venice needs this kind of investment right now. Tommaso, what do you think of that opportunity for investment? I think that Venice has to find the opportunity to give back the city to the citizens.

And that's the opportunity that we are looking for. Jeff Bezos already has headquarters in our region, and there are lots of struggles about people that cannot go to the toilet, about people working 20 hours a day without a contract. There are trials going on about Jeff Bezos' activities in the Venice region. And so nothing will change in Venice unless we change the direction of these investments in the city. Bezos, you know, we're hearing that he's made a donation to a local environmental research group, he's hired local artisans, AP is reporting that 80% of the provisions will be sourced locally. Does any of that matter in this situation for you? in this situation for you? Of course, an event like this has some benefits for someone.

But it's short-term benefits. It's a three-day benefit. The donation of one million euros for Bezos. I was in a TV show. This whole wedding is 30 million. Costs for Bezos 30 million is for me a cup of coffee and a brioche at the morning. One million for Bezos is something that the coins that you leave in the trousers when you put it in the washing machine for mistake. It's not a real investment for a person that has 230

billions, one million compared to a medium Italian wage is less than nothing. I mean, this is just This is just, I don't know, propaganda. It's just... It's absolutely nothing. What we need is a real investment. What we need is a change of politics. What we need is to give us back our city. Thomas, so the events have been shrouded in secrecy, we understand, and it's hard to know when and where the events are taking place. So how do you plan to protest this weekend? The protest will be tomorrow.

It will be a big march because we were planning to jump in the water and blocking the canals when Bezos decided to use the space of Misericord in the heart of the city and it's a place belonging to one of the society of the mayor and for which he is under trial for corruption and conflict of interest. So it was particularly annoying for a lot of citizens. But then after the protest, he decided to move out of the center of Venice for the party. So we will just take over the center of the city and make a big march. Well, it sounds like you have a busy weekend. I will let you go. And thank you so much for talking with me.

Thank you a lot for calling. Tommaso Cacari is a protester with the group No Space for Bezos. I'm Sarah Trelevin, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. The Bezos wedding isn't only vexing Venetians,

it's also getting poor reviews online and in some media for its massive displays of wealth. Sochille Gonzalez writes about class and culture for the Atlantic and in a previous career she used to plan big budget weddings. Sochille hello. Hi, thank you so much for having me. The protesters, as you've heard, feel like their city is being bought for a weekend by one of the richest men on the planet. Is that fair? I mean, I think it's completely fair. I

want to say as a former wedding planner, this is going to put a lot of money into a lot of people's pockets, which will probably make a wedding season. So it's not, to your point, completely without benefit. But I think it's part of a larger trend of everyday working people feeling like they are kind of grist in a mill for the needs of billionaires. To the point, it's not just that he's wealthy and having a wedding. It is that he stands for something alongside Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, which is sort of a making consumers, using human beings as consumers and then eradicating them as useful people in any other capacity. They're known for Amazon's kind of known for terrible labor practices.

They're using AI to try to, how do you kind of get rid of business? They decimated small businesses. Now they're looking at how can you use AI to like optimize out human beings. And so I think that there's a sense of Venice and the people of Venice being made a backdrop, which is sort of how I think working people feel that they are seen as by big tech in general.

So it feels to me like an extension of a feeling that is already in society more than it is about a wealthy person having a wedding. Yeah. And as you heard from our previous guest, there are a few billionaires that people seem to love to hate, particularly Bezos to some is one of those people. He's become a lightning rod for criticism. What is it about him that you think makes people and therefore Venetian so upset. I think that generally speaking, society was sort of frog-boiled into a relationship

with big tech that has like frayed us like the fiber of our culture. And now we're sort of in this place where you couldn't go back to kind of mom and pop shopping even if you wanted to, right? Like it's like, you're sort of like, the damage has already been done and now we're forced into this relationship.

And I think that makes us feel devalued. I think when you start reading about, you know, and that's particularly with him, but I think it kind of gets into the same thing when you start looking at like Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. And then I think the fact that, you know, it was interesting to hear Tomaso talk about them supporting Donald Trump and being at the inauguration. There was something about this idea And I think the fact that, you know, it was interesting to hear Tomaso talk about them

supporting Donald Trump and being at the inauguration. There was something about this idea that before they used to seem like they were like left and democratic and liberal. And now they're kind of like, well, now it's convenient to be right. And nothing really matters except for them profiting. And I think that that has made people feel that they stand kind of for nothing but money and the making of money. Interesting point there.

So, Chiel, you used to plan big budget weddings. I do need to ask you about some of the details that you know about this wedding in Venice and why maybe those details are really sort of rubbing salt in the wound for some people. Well, first I want to just talk about the wedding invitation, the portion that was leaked. That was clearly leaked on purpose. First of all, it doesn't even seem like it was actually designed. I wonder if it actually had anything to do with the real invite, but it's funny that the only portion of that invite that was leaked to the public was the portion that makes them

seem charitable and generous. And please don't bring gifts to us. Please billionaires, don't bring gifts to us other billionaires, which is hilarious. But I do think that there, you know, I was reading recently that there was public streets that were blocked off because of the church that they rented for the welcome reception. And that sort of banned the public from being able

to walk near, you know, one of these like kind of church slash museums. And I think that also one of the things that people may not realize, but in Italy, museums are very public spaces. Often, there aren't even any, unlike in America, there aren't even museum dues. Most museums in Italy are free. And so the idea that suddenly that gets privatized

is quite irksome. The idea that they block any canals is quite irksome. And I think, well while I understand the mayor, it's an injection, a short-term injection of quite a bit of money into the local economy. I don't think that anyone benefits from being told that protesting is shameful. I think it's important that,

I think it's actually quite important that the public let the billionaire class be slightly irritated by them, because otherwise most of their days and nights, they can ignore the average person's life and needs, to be honest. So, Chil, we're seeing a real, seemingly an explosion of these ultra, ultra expensive weddings. I mean, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars

in the case of the Ambani wedding in India. What's behind that? Well, I definitely think it's a reaction to the pandemic. I think that in the years before that, following the recession, and I was actually still in the industry for a while after that, but following the recession, there was a real desire to sort of be quiet

about how much money you were spending. And so maybe the decor was a little bit more modest, but you put a lot of money into the food and the wine and to make sure that these events felt comfortable and fun. But now I think when there was a period where wealthy people don't like to be told what to do, but there's a field of psychology around class psychology

and that is one of the tenets of the wealthy mindset. It really bucks and bristles against being told what to do. And so you had two years where wealthy people were told, you can't actually do that. No, you literally can't gather. I don't know what to tell you. You can't have that party. And there was a lot of whispering about people trying to have gatherings behind, you know, like literally like going around legal channels and like, you know, around gatherings

and setting up tents and communing during COVID. And I think what you're seeing now is it's like a rebellion and it's like, well, now I can do whatever I want and I'm gonna do it as big as ever. And it's really been a post-COVID boom that's honestly, if you called any wedding planner, they will put, that works in the luxury space. They've never

been busier than since the years after COVID. Wow. And the guest lists at some of these weddings seem to be the same. Bill Gates, Oprah, Mark Zuckerberg, the Kardashians, Ivanka Trump. What does that tell us? I mean, don't they have different friends? Well, it's interesting because I think one of the things that should concern us about that is the fact that they're in an echo chamber of their own comfort.

They're not socializing with people that might bring them different perspectives, and yet these are some of the most powerful people in the world. They're literally in a tiny coterie of people that have the same kind of privatized lives. I was shocked at the ratio of 90 private jets to 200 guests. It's literally a jet, almost a jet per two guests. And we all already know the Kardashians had at least three of them on one jet. So we've counted just in that alone. So I think that when you think about how out of touch, but also in like sort of the culture from interactions with anybody other than people that actually are employed by them that might be working people living

on a living wage. Like what we think of as a living wage. Like this is a group of people that are in, they're in a true bubble. A very comfortable bubble. A very comfortable bubble. But I also think that's what was, that's what bothers. A very comfortable bubble. A very comfortable bubble, but I also think that's what was what the protesters were trying to pierce in Venice. You know, you've had lots of interactions with wealthy people, but the uber wealthy, do they really care about this discussion we're having? Do they care what people think of them? I don't think that they do, but I think that they should. I think that they don't care at all what people think about them, but I think that they should. I think that they don't care at all

what people think about them, but I think that they should try and get a sense of what's going on under the thing. Because here in New York, we just elected, for the first time ever, I mean, not elected, but a democratic socialist just won the New York City mayoral race. And I think that that is a growing drum in New York City, right?

And it's like, that seems shocking. My mother ran for a mayor of the Socialist Worker Party ticket in 1986 and was a write-in candidate. Do you know what I mean? And so that's how much this class chasm has grown, that now that's a legitimate, the DSA is a legitimate party here on the East Coast, you know, in a city like New York. So I think that they should start listening because the drum beat is getting louder and people are actually getting quite organized. We've just got a minute left,

but you know, a lot of people love the pomp and ceremony of these ultra wealthy weddings, you know, online. A lot of people want to see what she's wearing, all that kind of thing. But online as well this time, there has been quite a negative reaction towards Bezos and this bash. So what does that say? I think it's fascinating. I think that people are, I think that there's been a turn against celebrity also that's kind of rung in with COVID. I think that when people could see the sort of like, kind of comfort that people were isolated in during the quarantine, relative to like what everyday people were doing

with like five people in an apartment, you know, like kind of on top of each other. I think that there's been sort of a, I would say not a disinterest, because there's still an interest, but an interest in critique more than there is in anything else. And so I find the fascination less with aspiration than it is with skewering, which again, this

class of people doesn't care about how they're perceived. That shift is an important one in terms of how people are thinking about the class divide. We're much less fixated on celebrity as a thing we'd like to be than it is like a group of people to demonize. And why is that? That is so fascinating. So, Chil, thank you very much. I'd love to speak to you forever about your tales of the wedding planner life.

Anyway, thanks again. Thank you so much. Take care. So, Chil Gonzales is a staff writer with The Atlantic who covers class and culture. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.