Melinda French-Gates says ex-husband Bill has questions to answer over his friendship with late paedophile financier, Jeffrey Epstein, whom she said gave her “nightmares”.
French-Gates stated this in a chat with Gayle King of CBS Mornings, her first post-divorce interview.
She suggested that Bill’s friendship with Epstein was one of the reasons for their divorce.
She said she met Epstein in 2011, when she realised the Microsoft co-founder was hanging out with him too often, and she instantly regretted the experience.
“I did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein. I made that clear to him. I also met Jeffrey Epstein exactly one time. I wanted to see who this man was and I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door.
“He was abhorrent, evil personified. I had nightmares about it afterwards. That’s why my heart breaks for these young women. That’s how I felt, and I am an older woman. He was awful,” French Gates said.
She said Bill has to answer for the many times she met the disgraced Epstein, suggesting that it was a factor in their divorce.
“It was not one thing, it was many things (that led to the divorce). Any of the questions remaining about what Bill’s relationship with him was… those are for Bill to answer. I made it very clear how I felt about him,” French-Gates stressed.
Asked to speak on reports that Bill cheated many times rather than the only one he admitted publicly, she said, “Those are questions Bill needs to answer.”
On Bill’s 2000 affair was a Microsoft employee, she said, “I believe in forgiveness. I thought we had worked through some of that.
“I gave every single piece of myself to this marriage. I was committed from the day we got engaged to the day I got out of it.”