Valentine’s Day is this Saturday, and what better way to get into the loving mood than to read some of this century’s most outrageous words of affection, courtesy of your favorite billionaires, dictators, grifters, and more. You’re welcome (or sorry?).
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Jeff Bezos to Lauren Sánchez, 2018
Along with those infamous (unpublished) crotch shots, Jeff Bezos’s leaked texts to his now wife, published in the National Enquirer, include the powerful quote, “I love you, alive girl.” Not sure why we aren’t putting that on doilies. Other greatest hits include: “I need to smell you…. I want to breathe you in…. I want to hold you tight.” It appears money can’t buy good sexting skills.
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Mark Sanford to Maria Belen Chapur, 2009
The former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford’s affair with a certain Argentinian journalist is the stuff Ryan Murphy shows are made of. In June of 2009, Sanford disappeared for six days, telling his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when he was actually in Buenos Aires with Maria Belen Chapur. “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” immediately became a euphemism for having an extramarital affair.
“To me, and I suspect no one else on earth, there is something wonderful about listening to country music playing in the cab, air conditioner running, the hum of a huge diesel engine in the background, the tranquility that comes with being in a virtual wilderness of trees and marsh, the day breaking and vibrant pink coming alive in the morning clouds—and getting to build something with each scoop of dirt,” he wrote to Belen Chapur in a leaked email, after his wife found out about the affair. Other highlights include: “I love your tan lines…the erotic beauty of you.”
Sanford called their relationship a “hopelessly impossible situation of love” and admitted during a tearful press conference that he’d “spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina.” He clearly hasn’t watched Evita.
