Melinda French Gates is opening up about the emotional fallout of her long marriage to Bill Gates, describing a relationship marked by trust she says was repeatedly violated behind closed doors.
After 27 years together, she is now reframing their partnership not as a quiet unraveling, but as a reckoning with betrayals she claims ran deeper than the public ever understood.
The Pivotal Ventures founder is making headlines again following the Department of Justice’s recent dump of Epstein files that implicate Bill and others.
Photos of emails attributed to the disgraced New York financier appear to reference Bill Gates in a private medical context, suggesting a discreet attempt to address a personal issue during his marriage after overseas travel.
Melinda reacted to the unsettling news that Bill sought STD medicine to “surreptitiously give to Melinda” after allegedly contracting an infection from “Russian girls” during an appearance on NPR’s “Wild Card” podcast. She was initially caught off guard by the reporter’s question about Gates, though she refused to give details on what exactly happened.
“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,” shared Melinda, noting that she has moved on from that chapter in her life.
“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,” she said about the tech luminary’s adultery.
Melinda Gates responds after Epstein Files suggest Bill Gates got an STD from “Russian girls” and planned to secretly medicate her.
— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) February 3, 2026
NPR: “The emails in the files suggest that Bill Gates had additional affairs and that he tried to get medication to treat a sexually transmitted… pic.twitter.com/gF1jRJyRb5
The former couple announced their separation in May 2021 after 27 years of marriage and three children. Their divorce was finalized the same year.
Melinda further severed ties with her ex when she resigned as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2024. In the past, sources who spoke with The Wall Street Journal alleged that Bill and Epstein met for the first time in 2011, which would’ve been three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges in connection with his trafficking activities in Florida.
Melinda wrote in her 2025 memoir, “The Next Day,” that she met the well-connected man once when she and Bill had dinner at Epstein’s NYC home in 2013. She said the encounter left her feeling “unsettled.”
🚨NEWS: Melinda Gates says her divorce from Bill Gates was partly due to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
— Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) January 31, 2026
"he was abhorrent, he was evil personified" pic.twitter.com/fHMrc7NV2K
Two years prior, she told CBS, “I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door. He was abhorrent. He was evil personified.” In the book, she confirmed Bill’s past infidelity —a betrayal that he too publicly acknowledged. On the podcast, Melinda said that Bill’s involvement with Epstein left her feeling “sad, just unbelievable sadness.”
The philanthropist explained, “For me, it’s just sadness. Sadness for — you know, I left my marriage. I had to leave my marriage. I wanted to leave my marriage. I felt I eventually needed to leave the foundation… At least for me, I’ve been able to move on in life, and I hope there’s some justice for those now-women.”
Noticed you hadn’t called for the guy named in there more times than Harry Potter is mentioned in the books, trump . You still begging for his support ?
— George Ryan (@NoTaBoT8700) February 4, 2026
On X, a user wrote, “She is gonna destroy him fr fr. Even doing interviews? Oh my days.” They doubled back to the thread wondering, “What did he do to make her that mad?”
A second person shared, “I think she’s traumatized by her life with him. We’ll never know what her marriage was like, and how she feels now, realizing that he was on business trips back then, and then had breakfast with her at the same table, slept in the same bed… Maybe she’s in therapy and on medication now.”
“Melinda says ‘sadness’ but her $6.3B settlement screams ‘checkmate.’ The real power move was letting him think he was the smart one,” reads a third reaction to Melinda’s interview.
Another person stated, “She’s rebuilt something beautiful after heartbreak… but finding out he wanted to secretly drug her without her consent? That’s a whole different level of betrayal. Bill needs to face the music on Epstein.”
A spokesperson for Bill hit back at the Epstein files claims, calling them “completely false,” adding that “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 billionaire issued another furious response, addressing the emails on Australia’s Channel Nine News. “Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologize that I did that,” said Bill. Skeptics don’t buy his story. One person said, “We knew something was up when your wife divorced you and the billionaire wives left them too!!!”
Bill also denied ever visiting Epstein’s infamous Caribbean sex den in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Little Saint James, and that the businessman introduced him to women. His denial is almost unbelievable, pointing to dozens of images of him with Epstein, former president Bill Clinton and others.
The former Gates couple have each moved on to dating other people: Melinda is dating fellow tech entrepreneur Philip Vaughn, 48, and Bill is dating philanthropist Paula Hurd, 62, the widow of former Oracle CEO Mark Hurd.
