One of two Russian women Bill Gates admits having affairs with during his 27-year marriage was helped financially by Jeffrey Epstein — who used the sordid secret to try to blackmail the billionaire Microsoft co-founder.
Gates’ surprising mea culpa Tuesday was a questionable attempt to cleanse his image over his friendship with Epstein, which ex-wife Melinda French Gates largely blames for destroying their marriage.
“I did have affairs, one with a Russian bridge player … and one with a Russian nuclear physicist,” the billionaire told staff at a town hall for his Gates Foundation, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Gates admitted the affairs while maintaining that he did nothing “illicit” with his now-dead pedophile pal.
However, rumors of the fling with the bridge player, Mila Antonova, first emerged over her own ties to Epstein — ones featured heavily in damning exchanges in the Epstein files.
Gates was 53 when he was first pictured with Antonova, who was in her 20s, at a national bridge event in Washington, DC — where the Russian suggested they had a less-than-romantic introduction.
“I didn’t beat him, but I tried to kick him,” she said the following year with a big smile at a talk in New York, making clear she had spent years trying to meet him.
It’s not known when their affair started or how long it lasted.
However, one of Gates’ main advisers and confidants, Boris Nikolic, introduced her to Epstein in 2013 — when he’d already convicted of child-sex offenses — as she sought help getting money to start an online business to teach people how to play bridge.
Epstein also paid Antonova so she could attend a programming camp as part of helping her pursue a career in software development, she told the Wall Street Journal in 2023, when she had initially refused to confirm the affair with Gates.
“Epstein agreed to pay, and he paid directly to the school,” she explained at the time. “Nothing was exchanged. I don’t know why he did that. When I asked, he said something like he was wealthy and wanted to help people when he could.”
However, he appeared to have a far more sinister motive — and try to force Gates to pay him that money and more under the threat of exposing his cheating to his then-wife.
A Gates spokesperson previously claimed that Epstein “tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship to threaten Mr. Gates.”
In a July 2017 email released by the Department of Justice, Epstein also made a string of allegations against Gates, branding his one-time friend “so cheap” for the way he’d treated his mistress.
“After I sent her that note she said she had little money, couldn’t afford air conditioner, was living on a friends couch. Really needed money. I sent her some,” he emailed Boris Nikolic.
“Your friend Bill is nuts,” Epstein continued in the typo-filled rage. “His former girl. Can’t afford air con. Can’t afford to travel to bridge.The richest man in the world is so cheap, his former bridge girl and toy, lives on a friends sofa.”
Gates never paid Epstein, despite the threats of his cheating being exposed, his spokesperson previously said.
Antonova previously insisted she was clueless about Epstein’s dispicable behavior when he helped her.
“I had no idea that he was a criminal or had any ulterior motive,” she told the WSJ in 2023. “I just thought he was a successful businessman and wanted to help. I am disgusted with Epstein and what he did.”
Nikolic also said at the time that he regretted his involvement. “I deeply regret that I ever met Epstein,” Nikolic told the WSJ for the same initial report on the affair. “His crimes were despicable. I never saw anything like his illegal behavior. My heart goes out to his victims and their families.”
Melinda, a Gates Foundation co-founder who shares three adult children — Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe — with the tycoon, does not appear to have commented about her ex’s cheating confessional.
However, she previously admitted how “hard” it was each time new revelations came out.
“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,” she told NPR.
“Whatever questions remain there of what — I 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.”