MacKenzie Scott’s Heartbreaking Confession Goes Viral: “I Built Jeff Bezos’s Billion-Dollar Empire, Raised His Kids—Now He Marries Lauren Sanchez in a $150 Million Spectacle?” Fans Outraged as She Breaks Down, Admits ‘I Don’t Recognize Him Anymore’—Did Money and Fame Destroy the Real Bezos?

MacKenzie Scott was married to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for 25 years before their divorce in 2019.

Scott and Bezos wed in 1993 after a whirlwind romance. Together, they welcomed four children whom they have continued to keep out of the spotlight.

Since their divorce, the philanthropist, who is one of the richest women in the world, has made headlines for massive donations to hundreds of charities and has given away a total of $19 billion.

“My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful,” she wrote in a letter after joining the Giving Pledge, a list of billionaires who’ve pledged to donate half of their fortunes, in 2019. “It will take time and effort and care. But I won’t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”

After announcing their separation in 2019, Scott was briefly married to chemistry teacher Dan Jewett from 2021 to 2022. Meanwhile, Bezos has been engaged to former news anchor Lauren Sánchez since 2023, and their wedding will take place in June 2025.

So, who is Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife? Here’s everything to know about MacKenzie Scott and her relationship with the Amazon founder.

She’s from San Francisco

MacKenzie Scott and Jeff Bezos. Stephen Lovekin/FilmMagic

Scott was raised in an affluent neighborhood in San Francisco. The New York Times reported that her father worked as a financial advisor and her mother stayed home to raise Scott and her two brothers.

When she was 17, her father’s firm declared bankruptcy, and she took on extra work to graduate from Hotchkiss, her Connecticut boarding school, a year early. Scott later worked as a waitress to pay her way through Princeton University, where she studied creative writing under the late Toni Morrison.

Scott is a novelist

MacKenzie Scott. Charley Gallay/Getty

Over the course of her career, Scott has published two books. Her debut novel, The Testing of Luther Albright, took her a decade to complete and was published in 2005. Her second book, Traps, was published in 2013.

Scott revealed in the afterword of her first novel that she knew she wanted to be a writer when she was 6 years old. Prior to her death in 2019, Toni Morrison described Scott as an “extraordinary writer, almost full-blown.”

She was married to Bezos for 25 years

MacKenzie Scott and Jeff Bezos. Kevork Djansezian/Getty

After college, Scott moved to New York City to pursue her dream of writing a novel, but found it hard to write while waitressing. So when she was invited to interview for a job at a financial firm, she agreed, not knowing that her future husband would be the one conducting it.

Bezos hired Scott — based largely on a recommendation from Morrison, per The New York Times — and they soon began a whirlwind romance. The couple dated for three months before getting engaged and were married in 1993.

However, in 2019, they announced that they were divorcing after 25 years of marriage.

Scott helped him launch Amazon

Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott. Sara Jaye/Getty

Shortly after they married, Bezos told Scott he wanted to quit his job and start his own digital bookselling company. She encouraged him to go for it, and they moved to Seattle to pursue his dream.

“I’m not a businessperson, but to me what I am hearing when he tells that idea is the passion and the excitement,” Scott said during a 2013 interview on Charlie Rose of Bezos’ initial plan. “And to me, you know, watching your spouse, somebody that you love have an adventure, what is better than that and being part of that.”

Bezos ended up founding Amazon in the garage of their Washington home in 1994.

She has four kids with Bezos

Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott. Greg Doherty/Patrick McMullan via Getty

Scott and Bezos welcomed four kids together during their marriage. The parents have kept many details about their children’s lives private — including their names and the years they were born.

However, Scott did tell Vogue in 2013 that she put her writing on hold after their third child was born. She said, “I knew I couldn’t be the kind of parent I wanted to be and continue writing. Those years were just too busy.”

When they announced their divorce in 2019, Bezos and Scott made it clear that co-parenting their kids was the top priority. The Amazon billionaire wrote on X, “Though the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends.”

Scott pledged to donate half of her wealth before she dies

MacKenzie Scott. Dia Dipasupil/Getty

After the terms of her divorce from Bezos were made public, Scott announced in May 2019 that she had agreed to give away at least half of her wealth throughout her life, per Forbes. As part of her mission, Scott uses a “no strings attached” philosophy, which means she hands control over how the money she donates is spent to the nonprofit’s discretion.

According to Yield Giving, the website she established to detail her donations, Scott has given over $19 billion to over 2,000 nonprofit organizations. In a 2021 blog post, she wrote how she never “loved” the word philanthropy as it’s often associated with “financially wealthy people who believed they knew best how to solve other people’s problems.”

“How much or how little money changes hands doesn’t make it philanthropy,” Scott penned. “Intention and effort make it philanthropy.”

She remarried in 2021

Dan Jewett and MacKenzie Scott.Dan Jewett/FaceBook; Michael Kovac/Getty

Two years after her divorce from Bezos was finalized, Scott married Jewett, a chemistry teacher at her children’s school. When he later joined her on the Giving Pledge and promised to also donate half of his wealth over his lifetime, he described Scott as “one of the most generous and kind people” he knew.

Scott and Jewett were married for just over a year before the philanthropist filed for divorce in September 2022. It was finalized four months later.