Rosie O’Donnell has publicly criticized Oprah Winfrey for attending the extravagant wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, calling out the event’s ‘gross excess.”
The lavish celebration took place in Venice, Italy, on June 27, drawing an A-list crowd including Leonardo DiCaprio, Bill Gates, Orlando Bloom, members of the Kardashian family, and Sydney Sweeney – alongside Winfrey, who attended with her close friend Gayle King. The wedding sparked backlash from local Venetians, who protested the surge in elite tourism disrupting their historic city.
In a pointed Instagram post, O’Donnell, 63, expressed her disgust: “Seeing all these billionaires gathering in the gross excess of it all – the show of it – it turned my stomach.” She also questioned Winfrey’s presence, writing, “Is Oprah friends with Jeff Bezos? Really? How is that possible?”
O’Donnell expanded her criticism with a poem shared on Substack, highlighting the event’s opulence and its participants’ detachment:
“Bezos was raised by a single mother / He knows exactly what he does / So do all of his guests / Posing for photos forgetting themselves / In their designer outfits / Ready for a Vogue cover / A spot on ET / More worthless performative nonsense.”
Relocation to Ireland
Earlier this year, O’Donnell revealed she had relocated to Dublin, Ireland, after Donald Trump’s political resurgence in the U.S., citing the move as a decision made for her family’s well-being.
“I feel healthier, I’m sleeping better without the stress and anxiety over what was happening politically,” she said. “When it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights in America, that’s when we’ll consider coming back.”
Bezos and Sanchez, who began their relationship in 2019 after an affair, reportedly spent between $46 million and $55 million on their wedding – an amount that barely dents Bezos’s estimated $231 billion fortune. Despite the protests in Venice, the wedding went ahead, drawing the attention of the world.
