Jeff Bezos dealt further humiliation as protestors erect bizarre mannequin of Amazon owner sat on toilet near Venice canal
Protestors have unleashed yet another humiliating protest aimed at Jeff Bezos as controversy surrounding his three-day Venetian wedding celebrations continue.
The Amazon owner is planning to tie the knot with Lauren Sanchez this weekend in a star-studded and multi-million-pound spectacle that has been met with widespread protests across the Italian city.
This latest stunt, believed to be pulled off by anonymous art collective Kon Artiss, has been dubbed “Pre-Wedding Nerves”, and depicts the billionaire sat on a toilet with his trousers down.
Amazon boxes prop up the installation, which has been positioned on the canal directly opposite the Palazzo Ducale near the famous St Mark’s Square.
Bezos is depicted in his wedding tuxedo clutching a newspaper while fake US dollars spill out of a box by his feet.
Inevitably, tourists quickly gathered to take snaps of the protest piece, with local police soon arriving on the scene.
The latest demonstration comes after Extinction Rebellion activists scaled a 25-metre wooden pole in St Mark’s Square on Thursday, unfurling a banner reading “The One Per Cent Ruins The World”.
The climber remained secured to the pole for over an hour whilst Italian marines and police guarded the base, unable to use force to bring him down.
Before that, a life-size mannequin of the Amazon founder clutching dollar bills floated through the Grand Canal on a giant Amazon box.
The remotely controlled raft, orchestrated by activist group Borne Media, drifted past gondolas as onlookers watched.
The demonstrations have escalated as Bezos and Sanchez arrived at the Aman Hotel on Wednesday, accompanied by security boats, ahead of their weekend ceremony.
The couple have been forced to relocate their wedding from the Scuola Grande della Misericordia to the Arsenale after activists threatened to fill canals with inflatable crocodiles to block celebrity guests.
The ‘No Space for Bezos’ group claimed responsibility for the venue change, with the 16th-century religious school originally set to host 200 to 250 guests for the ceremony estimated to cost between $7 and $10 million.
“We are very proud of this! We are nobodies, we have no money, nothing!” Tommaso Cacciari of the group told the BBC. “We’re just citizens who started organising and we managed to move one of the most powerful people in the world – all the billionaires – out of the city.”
The Arsenale, a 14th-century complex of shipyards in the eastern Castello district, offers more easily secured access than the original central Venice location.
Celebrity guests have begun arriving for the multi-day event, with Mick Jagger, Ivanka Trump, Leonardo DiCaprio, Oprah Winfrey and Katy Perry amongst the 200 confirmed attendees.
The demonstrations continued as the couple arrived, with about a dozen Venetian organisations uniting under the “No Space for Bezos” banner – a play on words referencing Sanchez’s recent space flight.
On Monday, Greenpeace Italia and the British group “Everyone Hates Elon” joined forces to unfurl a giant banner in St Mark’s Square protesting tax breaks for billionaires, though police quickly removed it.
The British publicity firm behind Wednesday’s mannequin stunt said it wasn’t protesting the wedding specifically “but against unchecked wealth, media control, and the growing privatisation of public spaces.”
The coalition of protesters includes housing advocates, anti-cruise ship campaigners and university groups who view the wedding as symbolising growing wealth disparity and Venice’s prioritisation of tourism over residents’ needs.
The protests began after Mayor Luigi Brugnaro announced the wedding plans, with activists posting banners across the city declaring “Bezos comes to Venice only for the party, that’s the problem: this vision of Venice not as a city anymore but like a big theme park where you can hire pieces or all of it and just do your private thing,” Cacciari added.
Mayor Luigi Brugnaro defended the event, calling it “an honour for Venice” and expressing hope to meet Bezos, whilst condemning protesters saying he was “ashamed of people like this.”
The groups plan a Saturday march from the train station, with activist Federica Toninello promising “a strong, decisive protest, but peaceful”.
“We want it to be like a party, with music, to make clear what we want our Venice to look like.”