I haven’t been able to stop looking at the photos of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez frolicking in the suds of their foam party on board his superyacht, reportedly worth $500m.
The pair were spotted getting soapy with some friends as they kicked off their pre-wedding celebrations this week (with last night’s welcome party being hit by torrential rain) – and honestly, I’m obsessed.
Not because I’m envious. Far from it. I can’t stop thinking about it because it’s just so… crap?
Bezos is the third richest man in the world. A man whose upcoming Venice wedding is speculated to be costing as much as $55m. A man who can, at the snap of his fingers, get arguably anything he wants.
A man who could recreate one of Studio 54’s legendary parties on board his boat if he wanted to.
And he threw a foam party?
I remember my first foam party vividly. As you can imagine, it was slightly different to this one, and to be honest, I’m sure there are more fun iterations out there (Bezos’s isn’t one of them).
I was 18, at a caravan site in the South of France, and the DJ was cranking the 2010s tunes in the terrace area of the campsite’s bar. An area was cordoned off with traffic cones and tape, and a man positioned in the corner with a leaf-blower sent mountains of froth our way.
I – perhaps like Bezos and Sanchez – was expecting uproarious fun, but it didn’t take me long to realise that really, foam parties are quite rubbish. Once you’re in it, it’s a ‘what do we do now?’ situation. The floors are slippery, it’s cold, it’s wet, it’s surprisingly smelly and it bubbles end up in your drink.
I assumed this was a teenage milestone we all passed, realised was actually pretty embarrassing, and moved past. But apparently not.
To be fair to Jeff and Lauren, it does seem like the foam was part of Lauren’s son Evan’s 19th birthday celebrations. But, I still have to ask, can a billionaire not provide better fun for his soon-to-be step-son?
Maybe Evan asked. Maybe Lauren and Jeff missed that rite of passage in their youths and never had the displeasure of attending a foam party. Maybe this is their manifested yearning for a ‘normal’ experience.
Either way, no amount of money will ever make foam parties fun. And it looks even more awkward given how sparse the attendance was. One photo shows just a handful of people soaking it up.
My favourite picture is the one of the couple standing still in the middle of the bubbles, looking bemused about what they should do next.
Because that’s exactly how everyone who’s ever been to a foam party feels.
At least guests of this soiree could dive off the sides of the dancefloor and find reprieve in the waters of the Adriatic Sea.
But it’s left me wondering, if this is the kind of organised fun Bezos lined up in the days before his wedding – with celebrations due to last three days – what else do we have in store?
Bingo on board a Blue Origin spaceflight , musical statues in Piazza San Marco, or pass the parcel with millions of dollars between each layer?
To be honest, all of these sound far, far more fun than a foam party on a superyacht.
I guess we’ve learned that all the riches in the world can’t buy taste.
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