In 2021, Melinda Gates filed for divorce from Bill Gates. Very quickly out of the gate, Melinda went on offense, having her team brief multiple legitimate news outlets about what she had been dealing with, up to and including Bill’s infidelities and his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Melinda cited Epstein very early on as a reason for the divorce, and I absolutely believe that Bill meeting and socializing with Epstein was a turning point in their marriage. Well, years after the Gates’ divorce was finalized, the Epstein files have revealed some weird stuff about Bill Gates. At one point, Epstein wrote some kind of bizarre account about Bill Gates having sex with Russian girls and catching an STD and begging Epstein for antibiotics. Beyond the sleaze of it all, it actually reads like Epstein was manufacturing kompromat on Gates. Bill’s people came out and furiously denied it, but Melinda was out this week, and they asked her about it too.
Melinda French Gates is reacting to newly released emails from sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that invoked her ex-husband Bill Gates, who has long grappled with his association to the disgraced financier and accused human trafficker. The documents — which were made public by the U.S. Department of Justice last week — include years-old draft emails Epstein addressed to himself in which he accused the Microsoft co-founder of contracting a sexually transmitted infection from “Russian girls” and then asking for Epstein’s help.
One draft message from July 18, 2013, reads: “To add insult to the injury you then subsequently with tears in your eyes, implore me to please delete the emails regarding your std, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda, and the description of your penis.”
A spokesperson for Bill, 70, called the claims from Epstein “absolutely absurd and completely false.”
“The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame,” the spokesperson said in a statement to PEOPLE.
Bill’s ex-wife, with whom he shares three children, recently sat down with NPR for an episode of their Wild Card podcast and addressed the new headlines herself. After host Rachel Martin noted “your ex-husband Bill is named in the newest tranche of Epstein files,” she told Melinda, “There are new alleged details about his past behavior, and I wanna give you the opportunity to respond in whatever way you want to.”
Melinda, 61, spoke broadly about Epstein’s transgressions with women and, particularly, young girls as well as his large circle of powerful men — and about her own marriage.
“I think we’re having a reckoning as a society, right? No girl, no girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him,” said Melinda, now a philanthropist with her own Pivotal Ventures.
“It’s beyond heartbreaking, right? I remember being those ages those girls were, I remember my daughters being those ages. So for me, it’s personally hard whenever those details come up, right, because [it] brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage,” she continued. “But I have moved on from that.”
Melinda went on to say that “whatever questions remain there of what I don’t — can’t even begin to know all of it — those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me. And I am so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.”
While I know a billionaire divorcee is not a profile in courage, I really do admire Melinda for how she conducted herself, how she executed her escape, and how she’s always maintained that Bill’s association with Jeffrey Epstein crossed a line for her and that was when she knew her marriage was over. She’s always centered Epstein’s victims too, and she’s been doing more with girls’ empowerment and women’s issues since the divorce. I imagine she feels nothing but relief that Bill’s bullsh-t is not her problem anymore.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
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- Melinda GATES – co presidente de la Fondation Bill et Melinda Gates,Image: 619018121, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: JB Autissier / Panoramic / Avalon
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- Los Angeles, CA – Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, will separate after 27 years together, the billionaire announced on Monday, ending a marriage that launched an influential globe-spanning philanthropic and humanitarian empire. **SHOT ON 09/17/1996** Pictured: Bill Gates, Melinda Gates BACKGRID USA 4 MAY 2021 BYLINE MUST READ: Best Image / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
This was a good answer. She centered Epstein’s victims instead of herself and gently sidestepped the question by not opening herself up to something that likely feels very private to her. Bill Gates is fucking disgusting.
For me, Melinda is the *only* older woman who has conducted herself in an honourable way, in an authentic, principled, way. Self-respect really does have to come before your relationship if there is a conflict between the two. She’s a living example of how not to land on the slippery slope.
Mackenzie Bezos remains as the ethical billionaire only because she’s giving it all away. Melinda lived in Xanadu 2.0 for what, 20 years? They bought estates just for their kid’s horse jumping. She wanted US to BUY her book, the book where she explained how brave she was to seek a divorce. She wants to keep her life as a billionaire like the Walton women. She’s still moving in privileged billionaire’s circles, whereas Mackenzie has disappeared. The Bezos children aren’t photographed or filmed by prior agreement, we see the Gates kids.
While my heart goes out to my fellow Blue Devil Melinda and I am hugely impressed by her response, I am appalled that she was even asked this question. Mostly because I guarantee you that NO ONE is routinely asking Bill Gates how his conduct and friendship with Epstein has affected Melinda and his daughters and if he has any comments for Epstein’s MANY victims. As usual, a woman has to deal with a colossal mess made by a man that has NOTHING to do with her.
It really was such a gross invasion of her privacy. Women are always made to feel responsible and accountable for the behavior of their male partners. Also, we all fucking know how she felt. There’s absolutely ZERO reason to ask her this except to be salacious and generate a juicy headline.
The internet has been attacking every women named in the files whether they have knowledge or were directly involved or are just thrown out there in an email in which they were not CCed and aren’t even quoted as being told Epstein wanted to meet them. And yet the men mentioned directly aren’t.
AFAICT the publishing of victims’ names and the redaction of perpetrators’ names is a deliberate obfuscation and smear tactic that tRump’s DOJ hopes they won’t have to do anything further about. Pretending you need more time to publish files because you need to do redactions and then getting it backwards is intentional.
This is the kind of BS that makes me mad.
Women cheated, abused, got asked the questions, men never.
Also people, millionaire should be losing jobs, but no way.
White male privilege at its finest
Why are (ex)wives and the women in these men’s lives being asked these questions AND NOT THE MEN?!?! Can someone PLEASE hold these men accountable instead of putting the onus on the women?!?! Also, WHERE are the charges and indictments. They didn’t believe or take action based on the victims’ accounts, now there is written proof and still the only person in prison is, again, a woman.
Her response was impressive. She comes across really well, and is very respectful and empathetic to the victims. No matter how well-off someone might be in life, it must be absolutely devastating to find out about something like this when you have kids together. She’s really carried herself with dignity throughout the divorce and now this. I wish her nothing but the best!
Hilary Clinton should take note! I feel like she should have left her Bill back when he was carrying on with Lewinsky.
She still loves her husband. I remember Bill speaking at Elijah Cummings’ funeral. 2019, first African American to lie in state. She settled into her chair because she knows Bill’s speeches run long but also you could see the love she has for him on her face.
This was a pre-arranged sit down interview. If she didn’t want to answer this question, either there would have been an agreement not to ask it or she wouldn’t have done that interview and would have done one that *did* let her exclude specific topics (no idea if this interviewer allows banned topics).
This was Melinda getting her view of things out there.
She got asked about it when her ex-husband doesn’t because she has nothing to hide so she *lets* the interviewer ask about it.
This is exactly what I was thinking. Not that woman being asked about and held responisble for their male partner’s issues doesn’t happen all the time and I find it disgusting, but i don’t believe that is the case here.
I LOVE her answer. Putting the victims first, then saying yeah ask the men involved, including my ex. It’s so gross how women always have to answer for disgusting men even when they are no longer with or married to them, men who USED to be in their lives, before these women uncovered how disgusting they were. Melinda was ahead of this story and very smart. We all know the reason they divorced was Bill’s gross behaviour, we just had no idea the extent of the depravity of it, and even she admits she doesn’t know all of it! She knows enough to know she did not know the man and that’s enough to leave.
Well now the reporters can go ask Bill. But they won’t!
Britain is having its own scandal about this stuff – turns out the British Ambassador to America was gasp, connected to Epstein and shared sensitive information with him, and that Epstein was in fact, a Russian asset. So you can add can’t be trusted with national secrets to that long list of why men are collectively unqualified to be in charge of the world. Kudos to Namibia for electing all women to positions of authority in their last election.
Don’t come at me with not all men. Not today I am in no mood for it.
Melinda’s smart. She answered the question in her first interview after the revelations and gave an answer that centered the victims and not herself. Although I do imagine there is non disparagement language in their divorce settlement.
I suspect the question and how the interviewer would handle it was covered in the pre interview discussions.
The thing that makes no sense to me is that billionaires like Gates literally have private, completely stocked ORs built inside their bunkers, along with their own private physicians and nurses on-call, ready to serve any need that might arise, night and day. Michael Jackson could afford his own anesthesiologist and he was poor compared to Gates.
It makes no sense to me that he wouldn’t just get his private physicians to give him the antibiotics. Hell, you could get a courier to pick them up in a foreign pharmacy without a prescription.
That didn’t make sense to me either…
I do find it at least suspect that this email never went anywhere. The only reason I can think of why he wouldn’t go to his private doctor is that he was looking for medication to give to his wife without her knowing.