Melinda French Gates says Bill Gates ‘has to answer’ for being in the Epstein files

Melinda French Gates spoke out for the first time since the release of Epstein files that contained mentions of her ex-husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

In an interview with NPR’s “Wild Card” podcast on Tuesday, Melinda French Gates said she felt “unbelievable sadness” seeing her ex-husband’s name mentioned in the new batch of files released on Friday by the Justice Department.

“Whatever questions remain there … for those people, and for even my ex-husband, they need to answer to those things, not me,” she said. “And I am so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.”

“No girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him. No girl,” she added. “I mean, it’s just — it’s beyond heartbreaking. I remember being those ages those girls were. I remember my daughters being those ages.”

Bill Gates was one of several of the world’s richest and most prominent men mentioned in the millions of files released by the Justice Department on Friday in connection with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a series of emails from 2013 that Epstein sent to himself, he appeared to suggest that Bill Gates was having an extramarital affair and seeking illicit drugs.

In a statement to NBC News, a spokesperson for Bill Gates denied the allegations. “These claims are absolutely absurd and completely false,” the statement said. “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.”

In one of the emails, Epstein wrote that he had decided to resign from a role he had with the Gates Foundation and BG3, a think tank founded by Bill Gates, because he got “caught up in a severe martial dispute between Melinda and Bill.”

“I have the greatest respect for my friend of 7 years, and wish them both well,” Epstein wrote.

With multiple typos, Epstein wrote of his relation ship with Gates: “In my role as his right hand I had been asked on mulitple occassion and in hindsight , wrongly acquiesced into participating in things that have ranged from the morally inappropriate , to the ethically unsound and had been repeatedly asked to do other things that get near and potentially over the line into the illegal.”

Epstein described those activities as “helping Bill to get drugs, in order to deal with consequences of sex with russian girls, to facilictating his illicit trysts, with married women,to being asked to provide adderal.”

Melinda and Bill Gates were married for 27 years before they divorced in 2021. She later said that her ex-husband had an affair with a Microsoft staffer in 2019. She resigned from the Gates Foundation as its co-chair in 2024. Bill Gates admitted to the affair in a statement to The New York Times in 2021 and told NBC News last year, “I have responsibility for causing a lot of pain to my family.”

“I had to leave my marriage. I wanted to leave my marriage. I felt I needed to eventually leave the foundation,” Melinda French Gates said on Tuesday. “So it’s just sad. That’s the truth”

Among the other high-profile men mentioned in the Epstein files are President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, former Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton.

Trump, Musk and Clinton have denied wrongdoing and have not been accused by authorities of any crime in connection to Epstein. Andrew has denied preying on young women allegedly supplied to him by Epstein and has also not been criminally charged, but has been stripped of his title and evicted from his mansion near Windsor Castle because of his friendship with the fallen financier.

Epstein’s former girlfriend and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is the only person to have been charged and convicted of crimes associated with Epstein.

Epstein died behind bars while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019. His death was ruled a suicide.

Melinda French Gates said on Tuesday the details about Bill Gates in the Epstein files are difficult for her because it “brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage.”

“I purposely pushed it away and I moved on,” she said. “I’m in a really unexpected, beautiful place in my life.”

“For me, I’ve been able to move on in life,” she said. “And I hope there’s some justice for those women now.”