The Princess of Wales has not been seen publicly since the Order of the Garter service two Mondays ago. I was surprised, at the time, that she attended the Garter service, just as I was surprised when she pulled out of attending Ascot two days later, giving no concrete reason for her withdrawal. Ever since Waity-Ascotgate (or “The Ascot Unkeening of 2025” perhaps), we’ve heard various explanations from various royal sources, everything from “she’s lucky to have survived her health problems last year and it will take years for her to recover” to “she didn’t feel like going to Ascot on a hot day.” We also heard that Kate would have zero events this week but she would almost definitely make it to Wimbledon. Lies, lies and more lies! It turns out, Kate did have an event this week – a private meeting, alongside William, with Melinda French Gates.
Kate Middleton returned to work behind closed doors after her absence at Royal Ascot last week made waves. On June 25, Princess Kate and Prince William received Melinda French Gates at Windsor Castle, according to The Court Circular, the British royal family’s official record of previous engagements.
The couple represented The Royal Foundation at the meeting. The Royal Foundation is the umbrella for Prince William and Princess Kate’s charitable endeavors and vehicle for their philanthropy in the fields of early years, mental health and more.
Melinda, 60, is an American billionaire philanthropist, the founder of Pivotal Ventures and co-founder of the Gates Foundation. Pivotal Ventures is a group of organizations working to accelerate the pace of social progress, especially for women, in the U.S. and around the world, while the Gates Foundation (which Melinda co-founded with her ex-husband, Bill Gates, and left in 2024) fights poverty, disease, and inequity globally.
Pivotal Ventures recently teamed up with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s charity the Archewell Foundation in October 2024, supporting a partnership with the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation to offer digital wellness programming for young women in underserved communities across the U.S.
The Prince and Princess of Wales’ meeting with Melinda didn’t take them far from their home at Adelaide Cottage. William and Kate, both 43, live on the grounds of Windsor with their children, Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, 7.
I still wonder why Melinda left the Gates Foundation – I know she wanted a clean slate in all ways after her divorce, but the Gates Foundation honestly does some amazing work and Melinda was a huge part of that. Bill even said that Melinda leaving the foundation was one of the worst parts of the divorce, and he seemed legitimately sad that they wouldn’t even collaborate on charitable work anymore. Melinda has used her divorce settlement to set up her own independent foundation, and I assume that this was purely about William and Kate begging for donations for their foundation. I hope Melinda saw straight through them – their foundation is a mess and they’re only giving out a tiny fraction of what they bring in. Anyway, it’s good that Kate was able to leave the house for this meeting.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.
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- Ceremonie d ouverture du Forum Generation egalite au Louvre en presence de Melinda Gates,Image: 618904876, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Jonathan Rebboah / Panoramic / Avalon
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- The Prince and Princess of Wales stand at the top of the Garden steps before the start of a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace, London Featuring: William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 20 May 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince and Princess of Wales stand at the top of the Garden steps before the start of a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace, London Featuring: William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 20 May 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince and Princess of Wales, known as the the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay when in Scotland, attend the naming ceremony for HMS Glasgow, at the BAE Systems shipyard in Scotstoun, Glasgow Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales, William, Prince of Wales Where: Glasgow, United Kingdom When: 22 May 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Princess of Wales, known as the Duchess of Rothesay when in Scotland, meet with apprentices and graduates during a visit to the BAE Systems’ Shipbuilding Academy to at the BAE Systems shipyard in Scotstoun, Glasgow Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Glasgow, United Kingdom When: 22 May 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The annual Order of the Garter Service at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle Featuring: The Prince and Princess of Wales Where: Windsor, United Kingdom When: 16 Jun 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Members of the British Royal Family at the annual Order of the Garter Service at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Windsor, United Kingdom When: 16 Jun 2025 Credit: Cover Images
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- Members of the British Royal Family at the annual Order of the Garter Service at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Windsor, United Kingdom When: 16 Jun 2025 Credit: Cover Images
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- King Charles III leads senior members of The Royal Family during Trooping the Colour 2025 Featuring: Catherine Princess of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 17 Jun 2025 Credit: John Rainford/Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN THE UK**
Not so private if Lazy’s blabbing about it.
See? I worked THREE TIMES this week! Poor Melinda, this couple are so indiscreet.
And the Sussex stalking continues. 😏
Give it up Lazy, you have little to recommend you. Start with your public speaking and go from there. You’re nowhere inspirational at all.
But did she bring her “notebook”, so people know she means business? Anyway, she probably wasn’t allowed to speak so as not to embarrass William.
Not that he is that much more competent at speaking than she is. Two of the most intellectually uncurious people on the world stage… literally toddlers at the table
It’s as if the Sussexes are building a pipeline for the royals to leverage. My God it’s hilarious…Jose Andres, Netflix, Melinda Gates, who’s next? Ideally we wouldn’t even know about these connections if not for the royal media minions stories that deliberately draw a connection in their articles for people to know. Seems like the royals want us to be aware of their stalking so they’re feeding the narrative via WhatsApp???
Crazy 😜 Scary 😟 Spooky 👻 Hilarious 🤣 ….. turn the tv off
Kendrick Lamar – Tv Off
a private meeting with a potential donor for their foundation counts as work now?? these two……
I am interested to see if anything comes out of this. I can see Melinda choosing to help fund some royal initiatives, but she isn’t just going to donate money because William and Kate asked.
Give us money Melinda, and we’ll invite you to our coronation! 😂
My first thought!! Now Charles is sending Kate out to beg for bags of money to buy royal favors. Too tacky.. But they’re the Windsors so what else?
I can see Melinda possibly giving them money. If I was her, I wouldn’t be giving them a lot but who knows.
I would hope Melinda would want to see results before contributing – I’d think that would be high on the criteria list. In which case I’d like to see their presentation, because it’s been a slow week for me and I could use a good belly laugh.
I doubt very much that Melinda Gates would make any decisions based upon a quick chat with anyone, let alone these two doofuses. And when I saw the headline I thought this was probably another one of those phone call ‘meetings’ that Kate gets credit for. Color me surprised, she actually left the house and walked over to the castle.
On a side note, is People hiring DF writers? They let us know, twice in the same paragraph, that Melinda Gates is a co-founder of the Gates Foundation. Geez Louise. Also, what’s the point of including a person’s age in reporting? I remember being irked about this decades ago & we’re still doing that? Why??
Gates is on the Epstein list. Would you want to collaborate to do monumental charity work with someone you knew was fine with being friends with a child trafficker and potentially all that that entails? It’s all tainted now. How much of his charity work was to create a persona meant to shield him from his friendships?
Agreed—there were probably root conflicts about what causes got supported as well.
I imagine this meeting was hastily arranged in order to counter the negative press from the Ascot debacle, see Kate “works”. So obvious.🥱
Yep. “Hey Kate, William is meeting with Melinda Gates to scrounge for money. You initially said ‘no’, but given everything that’s been… um… going on, would you like to tag along?”
Melinda and Kate are polar opposites – contrast Melinda’s work ethic and generosity with her wealth to Kate’s laziness and stinginess. Would have liked to have been a fly on the wall for this conversation!
Heh. There are times I wish my superpower was mind reading…😉
@Caitlin
Start with differences in intellect and eloquence. What does this intelligent, wise woman have to talk about with this mumbling ignoramus?
Besides, William is not much different from his, still wife.
Any work involving their foundations shouldn’t count towards royal work or engagement numbers
Is any of William’s millions going into this foundation? Hmmm 🤔
Ok so Harry and Meg teamed up with her for their Archewell Foundation so of course in good copying fashion they must now try to get her to invest in their foundation. It never ends with them. Hope she decides to pass on investing/donating.
the word is that Melinda left the Gates Foundation because she could no longer be in the same room or interact with Bill. their split seems to have been extremely bitter on her part. she didn’t drop the Epstein card for nothing.
Bill Gates has wanted a Nobel prize for his humanitarian efforts for a long time, you can google it. When Melinda left the foundation she ensured that Bill’s tawdry behind would never be considered, Bill’s choices had finally started to catch up to him in public.
Of course Bill laments her exit, she was done sanitizing his image.
Why don’t these people reach into their own coffers? They take other people’s money, enrich themselves with rental income, duchies and many other things and are not able to raise money for their own organizations? Donations are for charity, I can’t see that anywhere with these people.
Maybe it’s a partnership somewhere in Britain. Like, I dunno, funding Ahly Yaahs research or helping solve homelessness. And the Waleses will put their names all over it.
Bet kate was well enough to lift her crack baby drink to her Lips while she rewatched suits and updated her Meghan mood board. No . I don’t buy Kate was Ill, she is lazy and has zero plans to do anything that doesn’t bring her joy like zooming down those slopes or vacationing in the Caribbean. Work is not a joyful experience for her so she ain’t doing it . Period. See you at tennis, Kate
I know a lot of people here like Melinda French Gates but I think she’s been showing the kind of billionaire she wants to be. She wants to stay in high society, she’s not donating that much, she wants us to buy her book about her “brave choices” in getting a divorce. She was all in when they lived in Xanadu 2.0, a modern Versailles, a home so big it needed 5 kitchens. And now she’s discussing philanthropy with royals that never get anything done. Mackenzie is the only billionaire that’s doing it right.
Five kitchens?? Ooh, Katie Keen only has two at Anmer, I wonder if she’ll add a third now?
So Kate will get the generous and lovely Melinda make donations that she and Will would never make? Will it all go to the Early Years? If so, what could they do with the money besides steal it? As far as I know the Early Years doesn’t actually DO anything for children. Perhaps to the manufacture of pie charts?
Hey Melinda, don’t waste foundation money on this. Signed, every other project she’s touched.