Activists in Venice are stepping up protests in an attempt to disrupt, or even prevent, the planned wedding celebrations of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Emmy-winning journalist, pilot and entrepreneur Lauren Sánchez next week.
As anticipated by Variety in April, preparations for the three-day nuptial festivities – reportedly expected to take place June 26-28 – have been raising the hackles of activists who claim that Venice is becoming a playground for the rich to the detriment of its inhabitants. As a result, the activists have started a “No Space for Bezos” campaign, a play on words on Bezos’ Blue Origin spaceflight venture.
Over the weekend, they hung a huge banner on St. Mark’s Tower in Venice with “Bezos” in blue capital letters and a red X over it. The “No Space for Bezos” campaign has also unfurled other banners and pasted stickers on walls throughout the city.
Activists of “No Space for Bezos” displayed a banner on the Rialto Bridge to protest the wedding to be held in Venice.
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“This wedding is the symbol of the exploitation of the city by outsiders,” Federica Toninelli, a 33-year-old Venetian activist affiliated with the “No Space for Bezos” protesters, told Reuters.
Now, the protesters are threatening to block access to canals as well as the city’s narrow streets to prevent the reported roughly 200 guests invited to the Bezos-Sánchez wedding from reaching various party venues.
Invited guests reportedly include Katy Perry, some of the Kardashians, Eva Longoria, Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King.
Meanwhile, Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro said he hoped the protest won’t succeed in disrupting Bezos and Sanchez’s wedding plans. “We will have to apologize to Bezos,” Brugnaro told reporters in Venice on Friday. “I am ashamed of those who behave like this. I hope that Bezos comes anyway,” he added, noting that “not all Venetians think like these protesters.”
If the Bezos-Sánchez wedding celebrations go through, they will mark the biggest nuptial bash to be held in Venice since George Clooney married Amal Alamuddin on the lagoon in 2014, a star-studded affair that was pulled off without a hitch.
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