Starting the week off on a cursed note, Jeff Bezos is trying to beef with Leonardo DiCaprio... over Lauren Sánchez, the former Fox 11 news anchor whom Bezos is currently dating.
The trio attended the LACMA Art + Film Gala, where Variety captured Sánchez seemingly enthralled by whatever DiCaprio was saying. (Climate change talk, perhaps?) Bezos, his bald head gleaming under the lights, stood behind Sanchez.
Obviously, the footage was immortalized in a GIF that's now going viral on Twitter.
Adding insult to perceived injury, Bezos thirstily "threatened" DiCaprio on Twitter.
Tweeting at Leo's handle, the Amazon CEO-turned-space-explorer posted a shirtless photo of himself posing in front of a sign that reads, "DANGER! STEEP CLIFF FATAL DROP."
"Leo, come over here, I want to show you something...," Bezos captioned the shot.
Compounding the ridiculousness of his clapback, the billionaire used Twitter's "quote" feature to include Barstool Sports' take on the viral GIF: "Leo is Mr. Steal Yo Girl," as the media company so eloquently observed.
(It's worth noting that Dave Portnoy, the founder of said media company, is currently facing allegations of sexual misconduct from multiple women.)
The beauty — and the eye-roll — of the entire situation lies in our very own narrow-minded conceptions of masculinity.
DiCaprio is the sort of Hugh Hefner of the acting world — conventionally attractive, with a reputation for dating much younger women (primarily, models).
Bezos is less lauded for his looks and sexual exploits than DiCaprio, but he reeks of a certain strain of machismo all the same. (Remember his phallus-shaped space rocket? Which he climbed aboard wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots? "Swole Jeff Bezos?")
As soon as the Internet laid eyes on Variety's footage of the pair, a sex symbol on one hand and a billionaire entrepreneur on the other, the GIF quickly devolved into a kind of alpha-male cockfight: will Bezos defend the honor of his girlfriend, thus asserting his dominance? Or will DiCaprio "steal" his girl, as Barstool Sports put it?
Either way, Sánchez factors into the equation as little more than an object.
Mercifully, Leo hasn't (yet) responded to to the whole debacle (his latest tweet is about saving the Okavango River Basin.)
Kind of sad for Bezos, who so obviously wants someone to reassure him that his manhood is safe and sound.
