Jeff Bezos ex wife MacKenzie Scott files for divorce from teacher husband after 1 year of marriage as the philanthropist ‘quietly’ removes the Seattle teacher’s name from prior pledges and her Amazon bio account.
Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has filed for divorce from her second husband, Seattle science teacher Dan Jewett.
Scott, 52, who recently removed all mention of her husband from websites outlining her charity initiatives, filed for divorce in Washington State on Monday, according the New York Times.
Scott, who is worth an estimated $28 billion following her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, removed husband Dan Jewett’s name and picture from her Giving Pledge profile sometime in the past week, archived versions of the website show.
In March of 2021, Scott used the same Giving Pledge site to announce her marriage to Jewett, a high school chemistry teacher from Washington state, by adding his name to her vow to donate the majority of their wealth to charity.
Jewett’s name has also recently been edited out of a Medium post that Scott wrote last year about their giving efforts, noted the New York Times, which first reported on the quiet changes.
Philanthropist also removed teacher husband name from Amazon bio
Of note, Scott, a published novelist, also deleted Jewett from her author bio on Amazon, the online retailer founded by Scott’s first husband, Jeff Bezos, and the source of her vast wealth the seattletimes reported.
The attorney who represented Scott in her 2019 divorce from Bezos after 25 years marriage to the Amazon founder declined to answer questions from the Times.
To date it continued to remain unclear what led to the couple’s relationship breaking down and whether the split was acrimonious.
Though Scott is widely recognized as one of the most generous philanthropists on the planet, she maintains a low public profile, tweeting or writing on Medium only a few times a year to highlight charitable causes.
Scott, and Jewett, 47, have rarely been seen together, and he quietly resigned from his teaching job at a private high school in Washington last year, saying he did not want to create a distraction there.
The photo of Scott and Jewett that previously appeared on the Giving Pledge site, appearing to show them out hiking together, is the only publicly available image of the couple.
As well, some of Jewett’s only known public remarks were in his letter posted on the Giving Pledge site, which has now been removed.
Donating in secrecy (and living in secrecy)
‘And now, in a stroke of happy coincidence, I am married to one of the most generous and kind people I know – and joining her in a commitment to pass on an enormous financial wealth to serve others,’ Jewett wrote in the now-deleted letter.
The Giving Pledge campaign was launched in 2010 by Warren Buffett together with Bill and Melinda Gates, to encourage the world’s super-rich to give away most of their wealth to philanthropic causes.
Since their marriage last year, Scott and Jewett had also become known for donating in relative secrecy.
Giving as individuals rather than through a foundation means the couple’s donations were known only when the recipients disclosed them, or through her occasional blog posts.
Scott has written previously that she doesn’t respond to press inquiries in an effort not to overshadow the work of the organizations to which she donates.
Following her divorce from Bezos, worth an estimated $137 billion, Scott became one of the richest women in the world, with a 4 percent stake in Amazon.
Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott filed to divorce her second husband. https://t.co/PFyCviPy5J
— TMZ (@TMZ) September 28, 2022
Musical chairs of finding eternal love
Since 2020, she has donated at least $12.8 billion to charity, according to a recent tally from the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Bloomberg has estimated her net worth as high as $62 billion, but between her billions of dollars in contributions and the decline in the stock market, the news organization now gauges her fortune at $27.8 billion – ranking her the 41st richest person in the world on Wednesday.
Jewett taught at the Lakeside School, the prestigious Seattle private school attended by the Bezos children, where he was popular among students and fellow teachers alike.
‘He’s earnest, not very edgy,’ Angela Loihl told the seattle times after spending nearly a month in 2014 with Jewett and a friend driving in a small-motored car from London to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Loihl recalled how their mutual friend had told her years later, after he married Scott, ‘He’s the perfect person to end up with this money to give away — no sense of greed at all.’
Scott’s divorce from Bezos unfolded as the Amazon founder entered a new romance with former television news anchor Lauren Sánchez.
Bezos, 58, and Sánchez, 52, continue to date, and were most recently spotted together at the premiere party for the Amazon Prime Video series The Rings Of Power the dailymail reported.
Sánchez, who has her own tidy fortune estimated at $30 million, has also entered the world of philanthropy, announcing a $1 million gift to a group serving migrant children in July.
She is also divorced from multimillionaire business executive Patrick Whitesell, the chairman of media agency Endeavor, which owns the UFC and Miss Universe.
Sanchez’s ex-husband Whitesell also found new love last year, when he married Australian actress Pia Miller.
