Melinda French Gates addressed ex-husband Bill Gates’s appearance in the latest batch of Epstein files.
The couple split in 2021 after 27 years of marriage. It has emerged that Bill had had an affair with a Microsoft employee during their marriage, and Melinda has referenced “betrayals” that preceded their split.
New documents showed an email draft Epstein wrote and addressed to himself in 2013. In it, the sex offender wrote that Bill had gotten an STI from “Russian girls” and was trying to get antibiotics from Epstein, which he could then give to Melinda without her knowledge. A spokesperson for Bill called the allegations from a “proven, disgruntled liar…absolutely absurd and completely false.” Bill himself has previously said he only met with Epstein in the context of seeking support for his foundation and called it a “mistake.”
“I think we’re having a reckoning as a society, right? 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,” Melinda replied. “It’s beyond heartbreaking, right? I remember being those ages those girls were. I remember my daughters being those ages.”
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“For me, it’s personally hard whenever those details come up. Brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage. But I have moved on from that. I purposely pushed it away, and I moved on. I’m in a really unexpected, beautiful place in my life,” she continued.
“Whatever questions remain there — I can’t even begin to know all of it — those questions are for those people. For even my ex-husband, they need the answer to those things, not me,” she said. “I am so happy to be away from all the muck.”
The host then spoke to Melinda specifically about the allegations with the STI. When asked what her “dominant emotion” is, seeing the ensuing headlines, Melinda replied, “Unbelievable sadness. Again, 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?'”
A spokesperson for Bill Gates told NPR, “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.”
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