Melinda French Gates was interviewed for an NPR podcast on Monday and was asked about new emails released as part of the files on Jeffrey Epstein that mention her ex-husband, Bill Gates. Melinda talked about the tremendous sadness she had about the incident and seemed to confirm something that had long been assumed about her divorce: Bill’s interactions with Epstein were related to the reason Melinda split with the Microsoft co-founder.
Melinda appeared on the new episode of the podcast series Wild Card with Rachel Martin, who asked about the “elephant in the room,” a reference to the fact that Bill Gates has shown up yet again in files held by the U.S. government.
“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. No girl, I mean, it’s just, it’s beyond heartbreaking, right? I remember being those ages those girls were. I remember my daughters being those ages, right?” Melinda Gates said.
Melinda said that it “brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage,” but that she’d moved on from that. She went on to say that she’s in a beautiful place in her own life and that questions about the topic should be directed to her ex-husband.
“So whatever questions remain there, 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,” Melinda said.
Bill and Melinda divorced in 2021 after 27 years of marriage. The New York Times reported in 2019 that Bill met with Epstein many more times than had previously been known. At the time, Bill said that it was because Epstein had met with a lot of rich people, which is true.
Rachel Martin went on to explain in the interview with Melinda on Monday that the “muck” includes allegations that “Bill Gates had additional affairs and that he tried to get medication to treat a sexually transmitted infection, and that he was gonna give you the medicine without you knowing.”
The allegations are part of an email that Epstein sent to himself on July 18, 2013.
“From helping Bill to get drugs, in order to deal with consequences of sex with russian girls , to
facilictating his illicit trysts, with married women, to being asked to provide adderall fro bridge toumamnts. as I am a medical doctor, but have no presriptions writing abiltiy,” Epstein wrote to himself, with plenty of typos.
The email is perplexing because Epstein was not a medical doctor. But the allegation about Bill Gates having sex with “Russian girls” sounds like it could be related to a report from the Wall Street Journal in 2023 that alleged Epstein was trying to threaten Bill over his alleged affair with Mila Antonova, a Russian bridge player who was in her 20s.
During the interview on Monday, Rachel Martin made sure to note that Bill Gates said all of that is false, but she asked Melinda what her dominant emotion might be in this moment.
“Sad, just unbelievable sadness. Unbelievable sadness, right? And again, I’m able to take my own sadness and look at those young girls and say, ‘my God, how did they… how did that happen to those girls,’ right? And so for me, it’s just sadness, sadness for, you know…”
Melinda went on discussing the topic while appearing to make an effort to phrase it properly.
“I’ve left, I had to… I left my marriage, I had to leave my marriage. I wanted to leave my marriage. I had to leave the… I felt I needed to eventually leave the Foundation. So it’s just sad. That’s the truth, right?” she said. Melinda left the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in May 2024.
“And it’s kind of like, at least for me, I’ve been able to move on in life. And I hope there’s some justice for those now women, right? We see them standing up in front of microphones in DC. What they went through is just unimaginable, I think.”
“These claims are 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.”
Representatives for Bill Gates at the Gates Foundation didn’t immediately respond to an email on Tuesday, but told NPR that the claims around Epstein were false.
“These claims are absolutely absurd and completely false,” a spokesperson told Gizmodo via email. “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.”
