The Tragic Truth About Jeff Bezos

It's not exactly easy to feel much sympathy for Jeff Bezos, aka the Amazon founder, who is currently second only to apparent nemesis Elon Musk as the richest man on the planet. After all, his money-spinning business has constantly been called out for everything from inhumane working conditions to violations of privacy since becoming the world's number one retailer. He's also been accused of allegedly discriminating against his housekeeper, curtailing free speech amid the pages of the Washington Post, and damaging the environment by launching numerous vanity trips to space, including one involving his pricey gift-flaunting girlfriend Lauren Sanchez. And that's only just a small taster of the controversies and scandals he has faced criticism for.

But that doesn't mean the multi-billionaire – who once gave CNN's Van Jones $100 million – hasn't been on the receiving end of life's harder side, either. From estranged fathers and near-death experiences to marriage break-ups and extortion plots, here's a look at nine occasions that proved that even the wealthy can't buy their way out of tragedy entirely.

Just 17 months after welcoming him into the world, Jeff Bezos' parents headed for the divorce courts. Jacklyn and Ted Jorgensen had first met as teens, but their carefree high school romance took a scandalous turn when the former discovered she was carrying the future multi-billionaire. "I can assure you that being a pregnant teenager in high school was not cool in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at that time," the Amazon founder later told Döpfner (via People).

And things only got more difficult from there. The pair, who'd walked down the aisle shortly before Bezos' birth, struggled to cope with the financial demands of raising a young child: Ted earned just over $1 an hour for his department store job, and his role in a unicycle troupe did little to support the family.

As he admits himself, Ted didn't exactly commit to life as a family man. "I wasn't a good father or husband," he later revealed in Brad Stone's book "The Everything Store," confirming that he'd spent much of Bezos' young life drinking and partying. "It was really all my fault. I don't blame Jackie at all." Following the marriage breakdown, Jacklyn and her toddler son moved in with her parents, while Ted eventually relocated to Phoenix to start an entirely new life.

Ted Jorgensen agreed to cut any kind of contact with his young son when his ex-wife got hitched to Miguel Bezos, a Cuban engineer, in 1968. In fact, Jeff Bezos believed that the latter, who adopted him soon after, was his biological dad until the age of ten. And Ted was no doubt just as dumbstruck when he learned in 2012 that his estranged firstborn was now one of the richest men in the world.

Yes, Ted had no idea that Jeff Jorgensen had evolved into multi-billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos until "The Everything Store" writer Brad Stone got in touch in 2012. Two years later, the one-time unicyclist, who'd since twice remarried, told "Inside Edition" that he regretted staying out of his son's life. "A big mistake," he acknowledged (via People). "But at the time, I thought it was the best."

"I would just like to tell him I used to change his diapers and just shake his hand and tell him he's really done a good job with his life," Ted added in what proved to be his parting words. Sadly, a reunion with Bezos, who you may not know is also related to a famous country singer, never materialized, and just a year on from the interview, he died at the age of 70.

Jeff Bezos had grown up believing that he was a one-of-a-kind genius. He'd been a National Merit Scholar and high school valedictorian, was granted a place on the University of Florida's Student Science Training Program, and in his graduation speech, revealed his aspirations of becoming a pioneering astronaut. So, it came as something of a shock when he began studying at Princeton University to find that he wasn't the ultimate brainbox of his class.

"I went to Princeton specifically to study physics and found out, by the time I got to quantum mechanics ... I was doing well, but it was so much work for me," he admitted to The Guardian in 2001. "It was hard — and there were half a dozen people in my class who were so gifted, and their brains were just wired in a different way, and the things that I worked so hard to do came so effortlessly to them."

Bezos went on to say that although he was in awe of his classmates' capabilities, he was also left feeling slightly unmoored. "It was sort of, 'Wow, this is incredible that some people can process these incredibly abstract concepts so gracefully' ... So anyway, I realized that I was going to be a mediocre theoretical physicist." The final straw came when fellow student Yasantha Rajakarunanayake solved a mathematical equation much quicker, and Bezos subsequently refocused his attention to the world of computer engineering instead.

Jeff Bezos experienced one almighty scare in 2003 when the helicopter he was traveling in crashed soon after taking off at a Texas airport. The aircraft had landed in a stream after being heavily impacted by strong winds, but luckily, the business mogul escaped with only a few cuts and bruises and was discharged from the hospital that very same day.

Bezos had been on board with two other passengers and pilot Charles Bella, all of whom also managed to avoid serious injury, for a mission to find new plots of land to help further build his fortune. The flight had been arranged by Ann Hiatt, an assistant who'd only just started work at the retail giant. And several years later, she revealed on the Partnering Leadership YouTube channel (via Instagram) how horrified she'd been to learn about the accident.

"And I just think to myself: 'I just killed Jeff Bezos,' and then it occurs to me that if I just killed Jeff Bezos, the entire company was going to crumble," Hiatt said. "Because at that point, all of our stock value, all of our investors and shareholders were invested in [...] the unique mind that was Jeff. And that might have just disappeared." Of course, tragedy was averted, and it turns out that Hiatt had actually given her boss the chance to play the hero, with the multi-billionaire apparently ensuring that everyone inside the helicopter got out safely.

While Jeff Bezos' professional life has continued to soar, his private life suffered a major blow in 2019 with the news that he and his wife of 25 years were divorcing. The entrepreneur and Mackenzie Scott had met at the same investment firm way back in 1993, and a year later, both left their respective vice president and research associate positions to launch Amazon from a rented Washington garage.

"After a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends," the pair said in a joint statement (via BBC News). "We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other." Despite rumors that Bezos had been seeing current girlfriend Lauren Sanchez while still wed to Scott, the pair have still publicly maintained their amicable front.

Of course, Bezos' bank balance also took a significant hit once the divorce papers went through. Scott, who's enjoyed success of her own as the writer of novels "Traps" and "The Testing of Luther Albright," retained a 4% share in the business she helped to get off the ground in the settlement. This put her net worth somewhere around the $35 billion mark, instantly making her the world's third wealthiest woman.

Shortly after announcing his divorce from his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos was accused by the National Enquirer of previously partaking in an extramarital affair with now-girlfriend Lauren Sanchez. And they apparently had the text messages and intimate photos to prove it. As you'd expect, the multi-billionaire didn't take this gross invasion of privacy lying down and embarked on a quest to discover how such revealing information was leaked.

American Media Inc., the tabloid's parent company, then added fuel to the fire when it reportedly threatened to make public several far more compromising snaps if Bezos didn't stop playing Columbo. This also went down like a lead balloon, and the Amazon founder subsequently uploaded a Medium blog post in which he posted the receipts. "These communications cement AMI's long-earned reputation for weaponizing journalistic privileges, hiding behind important protections, and ignoring the tenets and purpose of true journalism," the furious entrepreneur wrote.

"Of course I don't want personal photos published, but I also won't participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption," Bezos continued. "I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out." The plot later thickened when rumors surfaced that the individual who'd sold all the secrets was none other than Sanchez's own brother.

Nearly 20 years after walking away from a helicopter crash virtually unharmed, Jeff Bezos discovered that one of his closest friends had also been involved in an air traffic accident. Tragically, as one of two people killed when a plane went down in New Jersey, Glen de Vries wasn't as fortunate.

"Such a tragic loss," Bezos captioned an Instagram snap of de Vries posing alongside a model of a Blue Origin rocket from the billionaire's aerospace firm. "Warm and full of life, Glen made us laugh and lit up the room." The entrepreneur went on to add that both he, and his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, were heartbroken by the news. "Our deepest sympathies are with his partner, Leah, and all his loved ones. The world lost you too soon, Glen."

Only a month earlier, de Vries had served as a crew member on the same NS-18 mission, which also famously took "Star Trek" icon William Shatner into space, a journey he'd previously described as his "oldest, and lifelong enduring, dream." Investigators struggled to determine the cause of the accident that claimed his life, noting that the aircraft, which was being piloted by de Vries with the help of flight instructor Thomas Fischer, had no prior mechanical issues.

While some press reports have claimed that his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez's estranged brother was behind the leaks that put Jeff Bezos in an uncompromising position, the Amazon mogul himself believes that he was the victim of a Saudi conspiracy.

During his own investigation into how the National Enquirer got their hands on sensitive material, Bezos claimed that his mobile had been hacked following an encrypted WhatsApp message sent by an account linked to Mohammed bin Salman, aka the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. A digital forensic analysis allegedly found that the video in question had also included a malicious bug designed to illicitly extract personal data.

The Saudi heir and Bezos had previously enjoyed an entirely amiable and amicable string of conversations before the unsolicited clip caused all the trouble. According to various experts in the Saudi field, the multi-billionaire had reportedly been targeted due to his takeover of the Washington Post, a newspaper said to have been critical of the country's political regime.

Jeff Bezos certainly had a memorable start to the year 2014, but for a reason he'd rather forget. The business mogul was enjoying a cruise ship vacation journeying between the islands of Santa Cruz and Floreana on New Year's Day when he was suddenly struck down by an attack of the kidney stones.

Of course, as someone who makes a ridiculous amount of money per second, Bezos was immediately afforded the utmost medical care, with an Ecuadorian Navy helicopter transporting him to Baltra Island, where his private jet then took him to emergency surgery in the United States. "He had to be attended to in the shortest possible time," a statement from the Navy reasoned (via The Guardian).

"Galapagos: five stars. Kidney stones: zero stars," Bezos quipped in an email when asked by Reuters for a comment surrounding all the drama. The multi-billionaire later made a full recovery and, via his army of associates, thanked everyone involved for their quick response.