It was 2021 when Melinda Gates – the then wife of billionaire Microsoft mogul Bill Gates and mother to their three children – was last in the headlines.
She and Bill suddenly announced, in a joint statement, that they were separating after 27 years together – claiming that they could no longer ‘grow together as a couple’.
Five years on, and the headlines are of a shockingly different tone. In the Daily Mail, one read: ‘Gates, girls from Russia and lurid claims of passing an STD to his wife.’
The headline refers to allegations contained in the tranche of almost three million documents relating to the convicted paedophile, which were released on Friday by the US Department of Justice.
Among the most shocking are two emails that claim Gates slept with Russian girls, caught a sexually transmitted disease and then asked for antibiotics to slip to Melinda. For his part, Gates furiously denies the allegations.
The emails both appear to be draft letters written by Epstein, to be sent by Gates’s then-top adviser Boris Nikolic around the time of Nikolic’s resignation from the Microsoft billionaire’s charitable foundation. There is no indication that Nikolic himself knew about them.
Bill and Melinda Gates. Recent headlines following the latest Epstein revelations include: ‘Gates, girls from Russia and lurid claims of passing an STD to his wife.’
Bill Gates (stood to the left of Jeffrey Epstein), with Jes Staley, Larry Summers and Boris Nikolic
One of them lashed out at Gates for ending their friendship, and goes on to say: ‘To add insult to the injury you them [sic] implore me to please delete the emails regarding your std, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda and the description of your penis.’
Gates’s lawyers insist the allegations are ‘absolutely absurd and completely false’. They added: ‘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.’
Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? Epstein is long dead and cannot speak from the grave.
Lord alive, what a nightmare. How utterly humiliating not just for Melinda but their three children, Jennifer, 29, Rory, 26 and Phoebe, 23.
However, did Bill Gates get into a position where, whether true or not, there are allegations he had unprotected sex with prostitutes before sleeping with his own wife? What kind of immoral dupe is he to have befriended Epstein in the first place?
Another email from Epstein had Boris Nikolic apparently offering his resignation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
He wrote: ‘I have been caught up in a severe marital dispute between Melinda and Bill…
Melinda with the children… the sad truth is that even the billions her ex-husband worked so hard to earn can’t scrub him clean of his association with Epstein and his alleged Russian paramours, writes Amanda Platell
‘In my role as his right-hand man I have been asked and wrongly acquiesced into participating in things that have ranged from the morally inappropriate, to the ethically unsound and have been repeatedly asked to do thing [sic] that get near and potentially over the line into the illegal…
‘From helping Bill to get drugs, in order to deal with consequences of sex with russian girls, to facilitating his illicit trusts, with married women, to being asked to provide adderall fro [sic; amphetamine-based drug] bridge touramnts [sic], as I am a medial doctor, but have no presriptions [sic] writing ability.’
Perhaps we now know why Melinda was so vague with the reasons she gave back in 2021 as to why her long marriage ended.
Yes, she had stuck with him through all the rumours of his affairs with colleagues – Gates’s representatives acknowledged that he had an affair with a Microsoft employee.
But as soon as his relationship with Epstein became public in 2019, Melinda, an advocate for women and girls, met with divorce lawyers – two years before her official separation from Bill was announced.
Did she suspect then, as is now alleged, that her husband’s friendship with Epstein involved more than just business?
She is on record as saying, in 2022, that the split was down to ‘many things – but I did not like that [Bill] had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein. I made that clear to him.’
She described Epstein as ‘evil personified’ and claimed she had nightmares after meeting him.
At the time, there must have been some comfort for Melinda in walking away with a chunk of their joint $124billion fortune. It emerged last month that, in 2024, Gates made an $8billion donation – as part of their divorce deal – to Melinda’s Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation, which works to advance social progress for women.
But surely, Melinda, no amount of money could make up for your ex-husband’s alleged behaviour?
The sad truth for Melinda is that even the billions her ex-husband worked so hard to earn can’t scrub him clean of his association with Epstein and his alleged Russian paramours. And that for all his technical genius and philanthropy, it will forever be a stain on the family name.
Shame on Bill Gates. He might be a renowned philanthropist who is determined to rid the world of malaria, but my sympathy is with his wife who supported him and their family for so many years.
