Melinda French Gates says latest allegations about Bill Gates antics with Epstein dredge up very painful memories of their marriage
Melinda French Gates said that new details of ex-husband Bill Gates’ alleged antics with Jeffrey Epstein dredge up “very painful times” from their 27-year marriage — and have left her “so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.”The 61-year-old philanthropist, who divorced the Microsoft co-founder in 2021, opened up as explosive allegations about her ex-husband were included in the latest batch of Epstein files released last week.“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 told NPR’s “Wild Card” podcast on Tuesday.“I have moved on from that.I purposely pushed it away and I moved on.”The latest document dump included a 2013 claim by Epstein that Gates, one of the world’s richest men, once asked his advisers to give him medicine to treat sexually transmitted diseases to “deal with consequences of sex with Russian girls.”Epstein also suggested that Gates allegedly wanted to slip the antibiotics to his then-wife without her knowing.Gates’ spokesperson rejected the disturbing claims as “completely false” and proof that the now-deceased pedophile was out “to entrap and defame” his celebrity friends.Still, French Gates said talk of the allegations and others that have emerged over the years left her reeling with “unbelievable sadness.”“Whatever questions remain there… are for those people and for my ex-husband, they need to answer to those things, not me,” she said.“I am so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.”French Gates, who stepped down as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation following the high-stakes divorce, added that she couldn’t begin to imagine what Epstein’s accusers went through.
“I’m able to take my own sadness and look at those young girls and say, ‘My God, how did that happen to those girls?'” she said.“I had to leave my marriage.I wanted to leave ...