Bill and Melinda Gates surprised most people when they announced their divorce. The two were married for 27 years and always seemed to more or less have a solid relationship.
In the days that followed their announcement, more details pilled out about what their marriage was actually like. Many people have shared details about Bill's annual weekends with his ex-girlfriend, Ann Winblad, but it seems that the real reason their marriage fell apart might have nothing to do with her.
Reports suggest that Bill Gates' friendship with Jeffrey Epstein is what actually did his marriage in — and that Melinda had been verbalizing her concern about the relationship since 2013.
It turns out that Melinda Gates began divorce proceedings around the same time news that Bill Gates had met with Jeffrey Epstein surfaced. While Bill Gates always insisted the meetings he held with Epstein were about philanthropic work, it seems that Melinda may have felt otherwise.
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The Wall Street Journal said that "people familiar with the matter" claimed Melinda had grown increasingly concerned about Bill's relationship with Epstein over the years. Quite a few famous faces, including Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton, have also been associated with Epstein.
One aspect of the friendship that likely concerned Melinda was that Bill contacted Epstein after the allegations of sex crimes against Epstein were made. In 2019, The New York Times explained that none of Epstein's friendships "compared in prestige and power to the [then] world’s second-richest person, a brilliant and intensely private luminary: Bill Gates. And unlike many others, Mr Gates started the relationship after Mr Epstein was convicted of sex crimes."
Melinda Gates reportedly told her husband he should stay away from Epstein as far back as 2013. But Bill and Epstein met up the same day Melinda and Bill received the Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award that year.
There were also two people who helped facilitate meetings between Bill Gates and Epstein. One was Boris Nikolic, a former adviser who worked with Bill Gates and who also happened to be named as the backup executor in Epstein's will. The second person was Melanie Walker, who worked for Bill Gates at his foundation but also worked for Epstein as an adviser.
Bill Gates tried to deny that the pair were close in 2019. "I met him. I didn’t have any business relationship or friendship with him. I didn’t go to New Mexico or Florida or Palm Beach or any of that. There were people around him who were saying, 'Hey, if you want to raise money for global health and get more philanthropy, he knows a lot of rich people.'"
He continued, "Every meeting where I was with him were meetings with men. I was never at any parties or anything like that. He never donated any money to anything that I know about."
But an associate of Bill Gates' told The Daily Beast they were surprised that Bill Gates could claim to have no idea what Epstein was accused of throughout the years. "I can’t make the claim that so many are claiming. If you ask Bill Gates, he’ll say, ‘Oh I had absolutely no idea he wasn’t up to anything of the highest moral character.’ But I seriously doubted Epstein’s moral character."
The person went on to also explain that they weren't surprised Melinda was uneasy around Epstein. "He just was an obnoxious guy. He almost made a point of having bad manners, not paying attention at dinner … I could see how anybody, even without suspicions, would not want to be around him."
