Melinda Gates remembers working with Bill Gates during their traumatic (in “innumerable ways”) divorce. Discover what she discovered about herself along the process. Melinda Gates has reflected on the end of her marriage.
After 27 years of marriage, the 58-year-old got real about her divorce from Bill Gates in August 2021, adding that timing was a key in her experience. In a 3 October interview with Fortune, she said, “The funny thing about COVID is that it provided me the privacy to accomplish what I needed to do. “It’s excruciatingly terrible in so many ways, but I was able to get through it because of the seclusion. While Bill and Melinda were united in a marriage, they are also unified in their work with their eponymous foundation, which launched in 2000. For Melinda, continuing to do business alongside Bill amid their split wasn’t easy.
Additionally, she continued working with the person she was trying to avoid, and she said, “I need to show up and be my best self every single day.” So, even if I might be in tears at 9 a.m. and have to be on a videoconference with the person I’m leaving at 10 a.m., I must still appear and give it my all. She added, “And I learned as a leader that I could do it.”
The couple announced their divorce in May 2021, after marrying in 1994 and having three children: daughter Jennifer, 26, son Rory, 23, and daughter Phoebe, 20. Melinda told Fortune that her “primary concern” during the divorce was protecting her children. As for why they called it quits, the Texas native made it clear there were multiple troubles in her eyes, adding, “I had some reasons I just couldn’t stay in that marriage anymore.”
It’s not the first time Melinda has expressed that there were many factors that ultimately led to the split.
Melinda told Gayle King on CBS Morning in March that Bill’s prior interactions with late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein irritated her. “As I mentioned, it wasn’t just one thing,” she explained at the time. “But I didn’t like the fact that he’d met with Jeffrey Epstein, no.”
Melinda also mentioned Bill’s alleged infidelity during the interview, Wall Street Journal referring to an intimate relationship Bill supposedly had with a former coworker in 2000. The reported in 2019 that Microsoft had initiated a probe into the 2000 accusation. “There was an affair about 20 years ago that ended amicably,” a spokesman for Bill told the site at the time.
Despite having previously forgiven the Microsoft co-founder, Melinda stated that “there came a moment in time where there was enough there that I knew it just wasn’t healthy, and I couldn’t trust what we had.” Bill opened out about his sentiments about their divorce and his previous interaction with Jeffrey Epstein, which he called a “big mistake.”
In an August 2021 interview with CNN, Bill remarked of his divorce, “That’s absolutely a really sad milestone.” “I mean, Melinda is a wonderful person, and the fact that our union is ending is a source of enormous personal pain for me. We’re communicating and laying the groundwork. So we’re going to strive to keep that collaboration going.”
