Billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates said fresh allegations related to her ex-husband, tech billionaire Bill Gates, in the latest instalment of the Epstein files are “beyond heartbreaking”.
Speaking to NPR’s Wild Card podcast on Tuesday, French Gates said the allegations contained in the latest tranche of documents, released by the US Justice Department, had rekindled her memories of a difficult time in her life.
“For me, it’s personally hard when those details come up because it brings back memories of some very painful times in my marriage,” she said on the podcast.
“So whatever questions remain there of 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.
“I think we are having a reckoning as a society – no girl should ever be put in the situation they were put in by Epstein. It’s beyond heartbreaking.”
The 3 million pages of documents released mention a host of wealthy and influential individuals, including Microsoft’s billionaire founder Bill Gates.
The new material released includes correspondence involving Epstein and other well-known associates, such as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then known as Prince Andrew. Other notable names mentioned include former US president Bill Clinton and Tesla billionaire Elon Musk. Being mentioned in the files is not a sign of any wrongdoing or criminal activity.
Apart from containing new photographs of Bill Gates and Epstein, the documents also hold allegations by the disgraced financier that Gates caught a sexually transmitted disease after sleeping with “Russian girls”, and asked for antibiotics that he could give to his then-wife.
Bill and Melinda Gates divorced in 2019, ending a marriage of 27 years. While the couple said at the time that they planned to remain co-chairs and trustees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, French Gates resigned in 2024.
The allegations in the latest batch of the Epstein files have been strenuously denied by Gates, who has said his relationship with Epstein was confined to philanthropy-related discussions.
Speaking to Nine’s political editor, Charles Croucher, on Wednesday, the technology billionaire admitted that meeting Epstein had been a mistake.
“I met Jeffrey in 2011 – the focus was always [that] he knew a lot of very rich people, and he was saying he could get them to give money to global health,” Gates said in the interview.
“You know, in retrospect, that was a dead end, and I was foolish to spend time with him.
“It’s factually true that I was only at dinners. I never went to the island, I never met any women. And so the more that comes out, the more clear it’ll be that although the time was a mistake, it had nothing to do with that kind of behaviour.”
Earlier in the week, a spokesman for Gates told the UK Telegraph that the claims made in the documents were “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 spokesman said.
Speaking to NPR, French Gates said she was relieved to put the whole affair behind her.
“I am so happy to be away from all the muck,” she said. “I hope there is some justice for those women.”
Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after being indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges.
With agencies
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Better than average cook, pretty handy with knives and guitar.