Melinda French Gates said that new details of ex-husband Bill Gates’ alleged antics with Jeffrey Epstein dredge up “very painful times” from their 27-year marriage — and have left her “so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.”
The 61-year-old philanthropist, who divorced the Microsoft co-founder in 2021, opened up as explosive allegations about her ex-husband were included in the latest batch of Epstein files released last week.
“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’s “Wild Card” podcast on Tuesday.
“I have moved on from that. I purposely pushed it away and I moved on.”
The latest document dump included a 2013 claim by Epstein that Gates, one of the world’s richest men, once asked his advisers to give him medicine to treat sexually transmitted diseases to “deal with consequences of sex with Russian girls.”
Epstein also suggested that Gates allegedly wanted to slip the antibiotics to his then-wife without her knowing.
Gates’ spokesperson rejected the disturbing claims as “completely false” and proof that the now-deceased pedophile was out “to entrap and defame” his celebrity friends.
Still, French Gates said talk of the allegations and others that have emerged over the years left her reeling with “unbelievable sadness.”
“Whatever questions remain there… are for those people and for my ex-husband, they need to answer to those things, not me,” she said.
“I am so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.”
French Gates, who stepped down as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation following the high-stakes divorce, added that she couldn’t begin to imagine what Epstein’s accusers went through.
“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?’” she said.
“I had to leave my marriage. I wanted to leave my marriage,” French Gates continued. “At least for me, I’ve been able to move on in life. And I hope there’s some justice for those now women.”
Bill and Melinda married in 1994 and co-founded the Gates Foundation, which has spent more than $100 billion on philanthropic work since its inception.
They announced their intention to divorce in 2021, saying they no longer believed they could “grow together.”
French Gates later cited Gates’ meetings with Epstein as a major reason for the rupture, saying the relationship deeply troubled her.
Gates, for his part, has repeatedly insisted in the past that his relationship with Epstein was solely focused on philanthropic efforts.
His spokesperson ripped the latest allegations as “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,” the rep said.