The news fell like a thunderclap last May: after more than 30 years of marriage, Bill and Melinda Gates have decided to separate. Pronounced three months later, their divorce marked the end of a couple of philanthropists, who for a long time took advantage of their fortune to offer to others. Rather discreet in the media since the breakup, Melinda has finally decided to approach the subject for CBS Morning.
With the class that has always characterized her, the businesswoman decided to talk about the end of their marriage. “There wasn’t a particular moment or thing that happened. We just got to a point where we had had enough, I realized it wasn’t healthy and I didn’t trust what we had anymore“, she explained, fatalistic.
The affair that her husband had had in 2000 with an employee of Microsoft played in their divorce? Not according to Melinda who”believes in forgiveness“and who thinks he has”worked on it“. As a reminder, rumors had explained that it was following this “inappropriate relationship” that Bill Gates had left the company he had created. A rumor denied by the two spouses.
On the other hand, other voices had explained that Melinda Gates had wanted to separate from her husband following the accusations that affected Jeffrey Epstein. Indeed, the billionaire, accused of having organized a global traffic of prostitution of minors for the benefit of the most powerful, was a friend of Bill Gates and had even invested in his actions.
Since the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Gates has tried his best to keep this story under wraps. In any case the two ex-spouses, who have three children together (Jennifer, 26 years old and freshly married, Rory, 23 years old and Phoebe, 20 years old) have separated their different homes including that of Lake Washington, in the vicinity of Seattle. , who is worth nearly $131 million but continues to work together for now in their foundation.
For the past two years, it hasn’t been good to be one of the wealthiest people in the world: Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, separated from his wife Mackenzie after an affair when they had been married for 25 years. At the end of 2021, it was Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla, who announced his separation from Grimes, the singer mother of his last son.