{"id":12853,"date":"2025-06-25T06:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T06:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/12853\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T06:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T06:53:09","slug":"protesters-say-bezos-star-studded-venice-wedding-highlights-growing-inequality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/12853\/","title":{"rendered":"Protesters say Bezos’ star-studded Venice wedding highlights growing inequality"},"content":{"rendered":"

VENICE, Italy (AP) \u2014 This weekend\u2019s star-studded Venice wedding of multi-billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos<\/a> and Lauren Sanchez has galvanized activist groups that are protesting it<\/a> as a sign of the growing disparity between the haves and have-nots as well as disregard of the city\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n

About a dozen Venetian organizations \u2014 including housing advocates, anti-cruise ship campaigners and university groups \u2014 have united to protest the multi-day event under the banner \u201cNo Space for Bezos,\u201d a play on words also referring to the bride\u2019s recent space flight.<\/p>\n

They have staged small-scale protests, unfurling anti-Bezos banners on iconic Venetian sites. They were joined this week by Greenpeace and the British group \u201cEveryone Hates Elon,\u201d which has smashed Teslas to protest Elon Musk, to unfurl a giant banner in St. Mark\u2019s Square protesting purported tax breaks for billionaires.<\/p>\n

\u201cIF YOU CAN RENT VENICE FOR YOUR WEDDING YOU CAN PAY MORE TAX,\u201d read the banner, which featured a huge image of Bezos. Police quickly took it away.<\/p>\n

There has been no comment from Bezos\u2019 representatives on the protests.<\/p>\n

The local activists had planned a more organized protest for Saturday, aiming to obstruct access to canals with boats to prevent guests from reaching<\/a> a wedding venue. Then they modified the protest to a march from the train station after claiming a victory, asserting that their pressure forced organizers to change the venue to the Arsenale, a more easily secured site beyond Venice\u2019s congested center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a strong, decisive protest, but peaceful,\u2019\u2019 said Federica Toninello, an activist with the Social Housing Assembly network. \u201cWe want it to be like a party, with music, to make clear what we want our Venice to look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the 200 guests confirmed to be attending the wedding are Mick Jagger, Ivanka Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry and Leonardo DiCaprio.<\/p>\n

Venice, renowned for its romantic canal vistas, hosts hundreds of weddings each year, not infrequently those of the rich and famous. Previous celebrity weddings, like that of George Clooney to human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin<\/a> in 2014, were embraced by the public. Hundreds turned out to wish the couple well at City Hall.<\/p>\n

Bezos has a different political and business profile, said Tommaso Cacciari, a prominent figure in the movement that successfully pushed for a ban on cruise ships over 25,000 tons traveling through the Giudecca Canal in central Venice.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Lauren<\/p>\n

Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, Calif., March 2, 2025. (Photo by Evan Agostini\/Invision\/AP File)<\/p>\n

Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, Calif., March 2, 2025. (Photo by Evan Agostini\/Invision\/AP File)<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n

\u201cBezos is not a Hollywood actor,\u2019\u2019 Cacciari said. \u201cHe is an ultra-billionaire who sat next to Donald Trump during the inauguration, who contributed to his re-election and is contributing in a direct and heavy way to this new global obscurantism.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Critics also cite Amazon\u2019s labor practices, ongoing tax disputes with European governments and Bezos\u2019 political associations as additional reasons for concern.<\/p>\n

Activists also argue that the Bezos wedding exemplifies broader failures in municipal governance, particularly the prioritization of tourism over residents\u2019 needs. They cite measures such as the day-tripper tax \u2014 which critics argue reinforces Venice\u2019s image as a theme park \u2014 as ineffective. Chief among their concerns is the lack of investment in affordable housing and essential services.<\/p>\n

City officials have defended the wedding. Mayor Luigi Brugnaro called the event an honor for Venice, and the city denied the wedding would cause disruptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cVenice once again reveals itself to be a global stage,\u2019\u2019 Brugnaro told The Associated Press, adding he hoped to meet Bezos while he was in town.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a Venetian environmental research association, Corila, issued a statement saying Bezos\u2019 Earth Fund was supporting its work with an \u201cimportant donation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corila, which unites university scholars and Italy\u2019s main national research council in researching Venetian protection strategies<\/a>, wouldn\u2019t say how much Bezos was donating but said contact began in April, well before the protests started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VENICE, Italy (AP) \u2014 This weekend\u2019s star-studded Venice wedding of multi-billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[9600,13617,185,69,66,171,57,13615,2219,6340,4061,13616,4062,13618,13619,10514,80,402,13620,67,132,68,13621,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-12853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-activism","9":"tag-ayako-kimura","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-elon-musk","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-george-clooney","16":"tag-italy","17":"tag-ivanka-trump","18":"tag-jeff-bezos","19":"tag-kristen-barry","20":"tag-lauren-sanchez","21":"tag-leonardo-dicaprio","22":"tag-luigi-brugnaro","23":"tag-oprah-winfrey","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-protests-and-demonstrations","26":"tag-tommaso-cacciari","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-weddings","31":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114742690002938783","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}