The Daily Beast Podcast - Tragic Real Reason Behind Bezos’ Gaudy Wedding

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

Liz Plank joins Joanna Coles for a scorching postmortem on the Venice wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez—a $50 million display of “confetti capitalism” that collided head-on with a collapsing middle class. Plank, whose viral Substack column captured the online fury, recounts watching the foam-drenched bacchanal while her paper straw dissolved in her mouth and seniors were zip-tied at the Capitol protesting Medicaid cuts. She argues the grotesque contrast isn’t just offensive—it’s politically clarifying. As celebrities scrambled for camera time and Vogue’s fawning coverage backfired, Plank points to a growing revolt: from Zohran’s shock primary win in New York to Hungary’s defiant pride march. She connects the dots from Bezos’s billionaire cosplay to the Democratic Party’s disconnect with working people—and calls for all to use their voice, both online and off, to advocate for real political change.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Joanna Cole, Chief Content Officer of the Daily Beast, and this is an emergency Daily Beast podcast to address the huge world-shattering event that happened at the weekend. You know what I'm talking about. Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez joined together in holy matrimony. $50 million. We don't deny them. Happiness or love.

Hell, anybody who's been divorced deserves another chance at happiness. But Liz Plank, author of Feministabulous, doesn't agree. She spent the weekend drinking iced coffee through paper straws and then suddenly realized there's something wrong with this picture. So we decided we would talk to the humorist, the author, the podcast and the substacker to find out what she really thinks. This is an emergency podcast, obviously in the wake of the biggest event in the world this weekend, the Venice Bacchanal of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. And Liz, you watched the whole thing while you were,

while you were sucking iced coffee through a paper straw, which prompted a column which went completely viral. Just take us through it. I'm going to read a couple of lines from it, but just take us through the moment when you realized, you were using a paper straw, and they were spending $50 million on their wedding. in Venice. Yeah, I think it's a feeling that is familiar for a lot of people. Sometimes it's hard

to name the sort of apocalyptic, right, sort of like dissociative state that we can be in sometimes where, yeah, I'll be cleaning out like a ketchup bottle, you know, to make sure that I can recycle it properly. And then, yeah, I'll see Jeff Bezos, you know, on his super yacht. In foam. In foam. Yes. And doing foam parties and, you know, 94 private jets flying into, you know, Venice, into a sinking city, basically. And I, yeah, and then at the same time, I'm seeing seniors, you know, disabled seniors being zip tied at the capital for just fighting for their right to be alive and not have their meds taken away from them with this new budget bill that is being voted on as we speak. And yeah, I think many of us have experienced that kind of contrast, right? And again, I think a lot of us just dissociate because you have to go on with your life. But there was something very ironic about my paper straw disintegrating in my mouth as I was watching Lauren Sanchez, you know, inherit $260 billion. And so I want rich people to have a great summer.

I really do. And it will be a lot easier if, you know, we had proper taxation on everybody and we had social services that weren't being taken away to create a tax cut for which people to have, you know, other swimming pools and other private jets at the cost of, you know, life-saving services for people who do pay taxes in this country. It was a really shocking image to see the people in the wheelchairs being zip-tied. These were seniors. in their wheelchairs protesting the cuts against Medicare and Medicaid. And that was an extraordinary image of them actually. But I wanted to come back to this sense. Because one of the things that struck me about this extraordinary Bacchanal was a, the reluctance with which Leo DiCaprio wanted to be seen. Leo DiCaprio normally the most dangerous places between Leo de Caprio and a camera.

Right. But he had this, he had his hat over his head. he was there, but he didn't want you to know he was there. Meanwhile, his girlfriend was frantically posting, so we all knew she was there. Why do you think he was so reluctant? I think deep down, again, I think celebrities are people. I think Leonardo or DiCaprio is a human being. I think he, is he, though? Is he? I mean, again, I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Again, I want everyone to have a great hot girl summer. And I think Leo knows. Leo's definitely going to have a hot girl summer. I mean, clearly.

I saw, yeah, an article, he broke his 25-year-old and under rule because his girlfriend is 27. Oh, that's good for him. You see, shows flexibility. Yeah, there you go. A child mind flexibility. Yeah. Even if he's getting older, normally the girlfriends get younger, I like this. This is great.

Yeah, it's amazing. But, yeah, I think he does know that there's a hypocrisy there, right? And that he will be judged. for being there. And to be honest, I think when I saw him do that, I was like, okay, well, at least he sort of knows that he should be doing better. I was sort of shocked to see, yeah, just celebrities in full glam, right? Like on the getting on these boats and wanting to sort of promote the fact that they were there. I found that very sort of shocking. And, and I don't know if, yeah, that kind of blows my mind. That's where I go like, who's around them, you know? It's like

the whole space controversy, right? You're, you just wonder what's, you know, yeah, who in their life is, is sort of helping them remain connected to the real world, which I think is hard when you're a celebrity. You're not in the real world. But Leo, to me, yeah, that actually like that he hid his face. That felt normal. One of the things I find so interesting is this, is perhaps now that Trump, Donald Trump, has given permission to everybody to release their in a vulgarian. So where it used to be that billionaires were on the most, for the most part, relatively discreet about their wealth. And, you know, a lot of them like Warren Buffett signed the giving pledge that they were actually going to give their money away before they died.

Actually, now it seems to be like, no, we're going to show off as much as we possibly can. And we're really going to enjoy it. And not only are we going to enjoy it, but we're going to post it, we're going to monetize it, and we're going to flaunt it. And what I find really intriguing as the confetti settles in Venice outside the gritty palace is the idea that in New York we are now wrestling with a democratic socialist who's won the New York primary for the Democratic Party, which is causing panic not only in the Democratic Party, but also the Republican Party. And I can't help feeling the two aren't connected. One million percent.

And I have watched the... internal fighting on the Democratic side, being so perplexed. Honestly, as perplex as I was watching this wedding in Venice, where it just, again, it feels very out of touch. You know, Zoran had not, again, Democrats have been talking for, you know, years, but especially, I think, in the last few months of just if only we had, you know, a candidate that could get young people excited. If only we could get a candidate that gets men excited. And Zoran was leading, right, with both of those demographics. I think one of the things that fascinated me was his support with young men, right? Because again, I think on the Democratic side, there's this idea that, okay, we have to,

I mean, we know that there's been millions of dollars invested in like, how are we going to talk to men, right? How are we going to change the way that we relate to men when men want to be able to pay for the rent, right? Like, men are people and people want to be able to, you know, work and that and and and if they have a job then they can live right so you yeah he he excited young people he excited young men and here are you know democrats just kind of like shooting the bed and um yeah i'm i'm very disappointed to see it but at the same time very excited i mean that there's there's a lot to be excited about you know as much as yeah the bezos wedding and the zorayan discourse and this you know budget bill there's there there's a lot of positive things that

not only what happened in New York, but what's happening in Hungary, not to like take us fully off topic, but, you know, there was a pride parade that turned into basically a banned pride parade in Hungary by Orban who said, you know, don't go. And if you go, we're going to use facial recognition to arrest you. And that ignited, right? People who aren't even queer or wouldn't even have gone to a pride parade perhaps to go and, you know, take a to take a real stance against. this authoritarian regime and 300,000 people showed up, right? And people who, again, and obviously they're there, you know, supporting gay pride and queer people, but it became about so much more than that where people realized, like, if you're going to use facial recognition to arrest gay people, like, you're going to use it against me. And it's the same thing with all of these issues. And I think the Bezos wedding in a way, you know, I hope becomes a way for progressive like messaging to really be about the working class, to really be about economics, and that this,

you know, man who has helped, you know, Republicans. And, and I think that's, yeah, again, I don't think the wedding was good, but I think it, I just want people to be angry. I think it provoked people to let themselves. It felt inflammatory, didn't it? I want to, I want to come to a point that you made about actually how much Jeff Bezos or Amazon has paid in tax in a moment. But I want to ask you about a very good point that Frank Bruny raised in the New York Times, which was about this now this sort of mob of celebrities that turn up to everything. And it's the same people. So the guests at the Bezos wedding, including the Bezos is now, are also.

It's like a rolling caravan of celebrities they turn up at the Met Gala. They turn up at the Oscars, the Golden Globes. And it's this sort of pack of celebs that just turn up. And you're like, are they really friends? I mean, this is just a strange bunch of people. It's Oprah. It's Gail. It's the Kardashians.

It's Leo. It just seems it's Ivanka and Jared. It's a sort of strange mob of people that turn up and everything. Yeah. It's, I mean, and yeah, I don't know if they're friends. You know, I think there's. there, again, this is again. I mean, it's almost as if they're there to amplify the wedding.

I almost felt like the guests had been invited based on their Instagram following. Right, right. And again, even like, if you think about Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, right, and Elon Musk, right, a few years ago, just a few years ago, right? These were not people that we would have seen at the inauguration and certainly not get a front row at the inauguration. And, yeah, I think that there's a feeling. You know, it's a, it's a sort of primitive instinctual human thing to, you know, oh, I got invited. You know, I'm part of the crew. And but yeah, you're part of what crew, you know, you're part of, like, what are you?

Yeah, what message are you sending by going to that wedding? What I would love is like a list of the people who were invited and didn't go. Yes. You know? Like that would be interesting. I mean, we had a piece at The Beast saying that Donald, that Donald, that Donald Trump had been invited and Jeff Bezos was disappointed he hadn't gone. And you think, wow, because you went to the inauguration.

The least he could do is come to your wedding. Yeah. And again, you know, there's so many things that feel not normal, right? And we kind of get used to it. But I think that, yeah, the inauguration, you know, we talked about it a bit, but I think it's worth reasserting. like it is not normal that we had, you know, tech CEOs and CEOs in general have a better seat than many of the people, many of the public servants, right, in our government. And I think that we've sort of gotten used to that in a weird way.

It's, you know, the whole techno, you know, sort of bureaucracy or, you know, sort of oligarchy mixed with tech giants sort of being enmeshed and in charge and enabling this government. And yeah, celebrities with large Instagram following want to get into that power and influence. And they do have power and influence, which is, again, sort of the scary thing. You know, public servants, people who are elected should be the ones who have the most power and sort of agency in terms of deciding, you know, what happens in this country. And we've, yeah, we haven't totally lost that, but we've certainly, like, moved very far, very quickly away from that. Liz, hold on, hold on, even though this is an emergency. podcast, we must take some messages. And we're back with Liz Plank.

I wonder if this is a tipping point this wedding, because what I was fascinated by was when Vogue started posting the pictures of the dress fitting, the comments, at least the first probably 200 comments that I read were almost entirely critical, saying this is ridiculous, enough already, shame on you, Vogue, no wonder you're stepping down and a winter. And then another thing that went completely viral. alongside your column was the picture of Lauren getting dressed and then in the corner were too young what looked like seamstresses dressed in a uniform looking utterly depressed and as if they were kind of I don't know old-fashioned uniformed servants and that shot off I mean that went

crazy viral so you realize that people are looking for clues as to how other people are finding this and they're finding it a revolting, a revolting spectacle of a complete show-offery. And it's the show-offery I find so interesting because Lauren Sanchez was a journalist. She's sensitive to the audience and what people think of her. And this felt like too much, just too much for everybody. Yeah. Wow. I didn't see that photo and I can't wait to see it.

I think a lot of people feel powerless right now. And literally those comments, like people who made those comments, again, I don't want to encourage cyberbullying, but like you can cyber bully for democracy, right? Like you actually commenting. And again, even, you know, I talk about this a lot as, you know, a creator or influencer, right? Like that you are, if you're following an influencer, you are influencing them, right? Like I am totally influenced. And I'm reading the comments from people who follow me. And then I bring those things into the messaging and into the platform that I have.

And same thing with, again, commenting on a vote. So today, you know, again, as we speak, the Senate is voting on the budget bill. And what's happening right now is there's a whole contingency online. There's a spreadsheet that is being circulated of not only, you know, the sort of three senators that could be flipped. Because basically, again, it feels super to feed us. It feels like, well, we're never going to. We actually only need one Republican at this point to flip for the entire budget bill. to, you know, not work. And so people are circulating the, you know, handles of those three sort of

very persuadable Republicans. It's three senators, Susan Collins, Lisa McCursky, and who's the other one? Ron Johnson. Ron Johnson from Wisconsin. Wisconsin. And there's a spreadsheet of not only their handles, you know, for people to sort of flood their accounts. And obviously, again, traditional phone calls also work. But yeah, you can do this from your phone, right? But there's also a lot. But there's also a list of their donors and their Instagram and Facebook and social pages for people to flood those pages with comments so that those donors are also signaling back to their, you know, the representatives to vote no on this bill. And again, by the time this podcast airs, we'll know if it worked or not. But I think it's really the thing that I want to always leave people with

during this time, then during these very unprecedented times, is that you are making a difference. There are things that you can do every single day. And like, again, And these, you know, some of these donors like LLB, some of them have, you know, after we've been posting about it, a lot of people have been commenting, remove their comments, right? Like they're starting to respond to it and who knows what they're doing behind, you know, closed doors. But there's all kinds of actions that you can do. And again, I think commenting on Vogue and being like, we don't like this, you know,

capitalism will do its thing, you know? Like Vogue wants to sell copies and Vogue wants to. make money. And if you say, I'm not going to buy this and I'm not going to, you know, I'm going to unfollow. Like, those are real consequences for corporations that at the end of the day, like, you have so much influence and you have so much power over. Do you think that anyone is ever going to give up Amazon though? Much as I railed against this wedding and I'm thrilled for them that they found love. I think anybody that's on a second or third marriage deserves a good shot at happiness. I wish the many, many phone parties in their future. I just,

didn't like the show offering us of it. And I think it's tone deaf at a time when, you know, there is just the biggest inequality we've ever had between rich and poor. But I'm not going to give up Amazon. I wish I could. I just find it irresistible. It's so good. It's so convenient.

It's ruined the high street. It's so convenient. It is. And, you know, Anandiridas writes about this a lot. And he's, you know, talk to me about this where he doesn't, it's, you know, getting rid of Amazon, again, do it. I'm not saying that boycotts don't work, but it's a little bit like washing the ketchup bottle, you know, like you're asking people to individually, you know, do something

that collectively and, again, the government should be doing, which like people should be, again, people should have a right to have Amazon Prime, I think, and have, again, like, not lose on certain conveniences that, you know, company, provides. The problem is that they're, yeah, Jeff Bezos doesn't pay income tax. The problem is, you know, he's not being properly taxed and Amazon is not being properly taxed. So again, if we were able to do that, then everyone would be able to keep their Amazon prime. Everyone, and rich people could be going on their vacations and having fun and we wouldn't be pissed. You actually, in your piece, you actually say that Jeff Bezos played zero in federal income taxes

in both 2007 and 2011. And in 2011, he claimed a fourth. thousand dollar child tax credit. Is that true? Yes. And then he said you say Amazon paid nothing in federal taxes in 2018. Mm-hmm. Literally. That feels like it needs a much wider audience.

Yeah. And you know who also, you know, evaded a lot of taxes, Donald Trump, right? And those stories were written and told. And unfortunately, you know, it didn't move enough. people to... I think a lot of people think, how do I evade tax? I don't think they think, oh, that's really terrible. They're like, okay, well, if he did it, I must be able to do it.

Well, I think, again, the right has done a really good job of selling the American dream, right? And sort of selling the idea that this could be you. And I think that photo, actually, that you talked about, that dispels that myth. Because when you see that photo... a business with Shopify and batter records of of ventas with the form of pay with a better conversion of the world. Has you heard of the best.

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a euro at month in Shopify. com. we'll watch that photo and be like, I'm not Lauren Sanchez. I'm the woman behind her, right? Like, I'm the woman in the uniform. I'm the person in the uniform. But I think in a way, it's all linked, right? When you see very rich people showing off like that, it just feels disconnected from actually the anxiety that most people have, that they don't have more than $400 for an emergency, that 50% of the American population don't have more than $400 to deal with an emergency.

And that's the difference between the very rich and 50% of Americans. Literally. And again, coming back to that's why Democrats need to get behind someone like Zoran who is, yeah, speaking to the working class directly and offering, you know, free buses, right? Like things that would help the working class and that are simple and pragmatic. And again, I hope people feel angry, you know, when they see those images. That's why I wrote the article. At first I was like, okay, it's just, I'm just going to ignore it because I'm just pissed off.

But then I was like, no, it's actually really, really important for us to pay it, you know, sort of pay attention to what's going on and actually see all of what you're talking about, which is the showing off the lavishness and just the contrast with the average American. There's another, what I loved about the photo that you just referenced with the two women in the corner is that it was inadvertent that they didn't know when they were putting that photo out, that that's what people would home in on. There's another picture of her sitting on a sort of kitchen sink in a rather nice looking sort of artisanal kitchen.

But in the corner under the sink, there appears to be a couple of toilet rolls. And clearly nobody had noticed it, but it's just the juxtaposition of her sitting on this kind of kitchen counter. And then, oh, that's where they store the toilet rolls. So worth looking out for it. If you're going to go to Vogue or Vogue.com and look at the pictures, I advise you. you to spot the toilet rolls. How do you think Vogue did that? I wonder if it was a wink to people.

And I can't help wondering if Anna Winter just had enough at this point. She was like, oh, God, it's time to go. It's time to go. I can't do another one of these. Yeah, because it, oh, I love that, the idea that it is a wink, because it felt, you know, Katie Couric, my girl, our girl, you know, commenting on how tacky it looked, right? Like, yes, you know, she's, did you see Katie's comment?

I did. I did see. Yeah, we wrote a piece about her comment. But I wondered if some of the imagery in vogue was deliberately done to be subversive. So on the one hand, it looked like it was all magic. But in fact, you have the two sullen seamstresses and then you have the toilet rolls. Wow. I'm obsessed with that take, Joanna. I'm obsessed. I love that. I'm hoping that. I did on purpose to get all these. people, you know, commenting and being angry. I love that. I'm wondering. I can't help noticing they have very, very good photo editors over there. Every part of an image is studied within a

moment of its life. I'm pretty confident that was a subversive message going out from the unionized employees at Condé Nast. Sure. Sure. Okay. Well, I love that. Whoever was behind it, if it was one person behind the scene, you know, sometimes it's one person going rogue. Like maybe the, yeah, the editor or the whole team, I'm loving it. And everyone can do it no matter what your job is, no matter where you live, no matter what community you're in. You can influence people in so many more ways than I think you can possibly understand. Or you're possibly being sort of told, right?

And that's a perfect example, right? Yeah, Vogue could have just not done it. But doing it in a way that's subversive is so fascinating as a way to, We'll never know. We'll never know if it was subversive or not. But my hunches it was. There's been so much negative feedback online about this. What do you think Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez actually get out of this?

Oh, what do they get out of having these? Well, they want to be cool, right? Like they're rich, but they probably want to be cool even more, right? Or again, they're sort of, I'm sure they want more money, but, you know, probably there's diminishing returns when you're in the billions. And so being cool, right? Is this what makes you cool? Wouldn't it have been cool to take their 70 family members and a couple of decent friends

and actually just go off and do this somewhere discreet? Or do you think the more money you spend on a wedding, the true other love? Didn't it? Wasn't there a study? It was a few years back. But the more you spend on your wedding, the more likely you are to get a divorce. I don't know. I remember like 10 years ago that was like maybe it's been disproven.

But but no, it's, I mean, I think about this all the time with like money and and, and yeah, showing all like people, people who name drop a lot, right? Like people who, who know a lot of celebrities don't name drop. They don't. They'll say, oh, my friend, my friend, you know, and it's like Jennifer Anderson. You know, they won't name drop. People who have a lot of money and feel secure in that don't, don't do these lavish displays of wealth to your point, they do private things. And there are many celebrities, right? There are many rich

people on earth who are prime examples of that. But to me, yeah, there's something about, I think it was almost less about the money and more about look at all these friends that we have. Look at all these fancy people who like us. Look at, you know, Oprah, one of the most beloved people on earth, likes me, you know? And again, friendships can be transactional for anybody, but I think when you have a lot of wealth and when you have a lot of fame, they're especially transactional. Or there's a very high risk of it being transactional. And so I wouldn't be surprised that there are things that we don't know about, you know, that are happening. Even Oprah probably has dreams and things that she wants to do.

And having a friend that's a billionaire probably helps her achieve it. I don't know. You know, this is all speculation. I think Oprah is a billionaire herself. I found it hard to think of something that Oprah has that she couldn't fund herself. But I thought, again, possibly subversive in the Vogue piece, there's a moment where Lauren cries that cries out when she's in her dress fitting, that she feels like a princess.

And the people that call back on her and they all go, oh, you look like a princess, you are a princess. And of course they are the seamstresses, the stylists, the production people, i.e., everybody is being paid for. Our staff, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's so, again, now I'm going to. to watch all of the content that Vogue put out with your theory and I'm probably and like going to see it

differently. But yeah, again, like maybe that was on purpose. And again, if you've been around, you know, again, fame and wealth, like that's what often happens. Like they're surrounded by people who are on their payroll. Pay to help. Oh, it's just that they're, yeah, it's so a different world. And I think that the best famous people and the best rich people are the ones. that have real friends and not friends that are that are yeah sort of getting something out of that friendship and and maybe that's one of the one of the things that's going on I don't know I it's very perplexing it's very perplexing um it's it'll be something to watch sure be something to watch it's weird friend group yeah well the mob that the celebrity

carnival will turn up at the next thing whoever's wedding it is or or whatever prize giving ceremony it is. Perhaps it'll be Donald Trump's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony that they will alter. Oh, yeah. Oh, I can't wait for that. Yes, list. I'm looking forward to that. That'll be my final. That's my 13th reason. I think we'll see a lot of people that were on the inauguration dais back again. Anyway, Liz Plank, truly an honor to have you. Thank you so much. Thank you. So there you have it. Cyberbullying for democracy. Let's discuss. Go to our comments page on YouTube and leave your thoughts on this emergency podcast about the joining in matrimony of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. And may they have many phone parties in their future.

Don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast for up-to-date information on their honeymoon. Oh, and other things, of course, leave a comment and don't forget, Be Beast. This podcast was produced by Devin Rodgerino, Anna Von Erson, and it was edited by Jesse Millwood. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our start. started The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover

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