Onetime richest man on earth Bill Gates and his ex-wife Melinda French Gates, unlike many of their wealthy peers, seemed to have had a marriage to aspire to. They didn’t flaunt their wealth with vanity projects like going to space; instead, they invested in projects like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But as their 27-year marriage ended—it was finalized in August 2021—details emerged that cast their partnership (and Bill, in particular) in a new light.
Melinda French Gates, as she is now known, is now opening up about the infidelities, the divorce, and the Jeffrey Epstein of it all. In an interview with Gayle King of CBS News, French Gates reveals, “Well, I certainly believe in forgiveness, so I thought we had worked through some of that,” referring to an affair her then husband had with an employee in 2000, six years after they were married, which he publicly admitted to last year. On the topic of other infidelities, French Gates demurs, saying, “Those are questions Bill needs to answer.”
As for what ultimately caused the divorce, she says, “It wasn’t one moment or one specific thing that happened. There just came a point in time where there was enough there that I realized it just wasn’t healthy, and I couldn’t trust what we had.”
The pair share three children and these days are “friendly” but not friends. During her darkest days, French Gates says she shed “a lot of tears” and was “literally laying on the floor and the carpet…thinking, How can this be? How can I get up? How am I gonna move forward?”
“I gave every single piece of myself to this marriage,” she says.
Regarding the Microsoft founder’s association with deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, French Gates says she was never a fan of the man. “He was abhorrent,” she said. “He was evil personified. I had nightmares about it afterward. So my heart breaks for these young women. Because that’s how I felt, and here I’m an older woman…. He was awful.”
She added she had met him once, regretted it, and “did not like” that Bill met with him. (Gates said in a statement that their professional interactions were “a mistake that I regret deeply. It was a substantial error in judgment.”)
Thankfully, these days she can concentrate on more exciting matters. The philanthropist is “dipping [her] toe in the water” of dating. We have a feeling she’ll do great.
