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“Extra’s” Billy Bush sits down with former correspondent Lauren Sanchez to talk about her new children’s book, “The Fly That Flew Into Space,” and her upcoming wedding to Jeff Bezos.
Billy asked, “What’s it like being back here?”
She said: “It’s a lot of fun. It’s exciting. The site is different but it’s full of the same people so it feels like home.”
“I told you I ordered this set off Amazon,” Bush joked. “I ordered it that same day.”
“Did it arrive on time?” Lauren joked, while Billy teased, “It said the promo code was Lauren Sanchez.”
Looking back on her time on “Extra,” Sanchez said, “I have some of the best memories. It was one of the first jobs I had out of college. I got to travel all over the world, so ‘Extra’ was literally the first time I went outside the country.”
Billy asked, “Did you have a humble upbringing?”
She responded, “I’m very humbled. I’ve never felt like I was missing anything. I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My grandmother was a housekeeper. I had to clean the house with her before I went to school. She would pick me up in her car. I’d sleep in the car while she cleaned the house at 5 in the morning.”
About “The Fly in Space,” she revealed, “This is such a true story and it’s dear to my heart. I was on a plane with my kids and there was a fly stuck in the cockpit and we looked around and I thought… ‘Oh, this poor fly’ and my kids said… ‘Just think about what this fly is looking at. The fly will come back and say, ‘Mom, something incredible has happened.’ In that moment, I looked at my kids and thought… ‘This would make a great children’s book.'”
Lauren continued, “The fly has a really hard time in school. He wanders and daydreams, and that’s how he ends up in this space capsule. I always used to say that the fly is my son. He has dyslexia. And I realized that it was me. I struggled in school and always thought I was stupid. I literally thought I was stupid. And I lived with that thought my whole life. I had a teacher, a journalism teacher, who said, ‘Write this without punctuation or spelling. I just want to see how you write.’ I turned it in, and she looked at me and said, ‘You’re not stupid, you just can’t spell.’ My life changed. I was made to take a dyslexia test. My GPA went from a 2.0 to a 3.8. I went to USC and started my career in journalism.”
She continues, “Everyone thought it was a learning disability. It’s not. It’s a learning difference. And that’s what this book is about. It’s a book for kids who feel out of place because they’re not learning like everyone else in their class, but that’s OK.”
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Billie also asked her about her upcoming wedding to Bezos, jokingly offering to be the ring bearer, to which she replied, “Oh, that’s great. Great. I’ve been looking for one too.”
She continued seriously, “I’m really excited. [the wedding]”Obviously I’m concentrating on my book so please hurry up and attend the wedding.”
She excitedly said, “What I’m most looking forward to is marrying the man of my dreams. I truly am. He’s an amazing man. I get to spend the rest of my life with him and he’ll love my kids. That’s what I’m really looking forward to.”
Lauren Sanchez talks about life with boyfriend Jeff Bezos in first solo interview
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“The Fly that Flew into Space” is on sale now.