Bill Gates has admitted he “regrets” ever associating with Jeffrey Epstein, while his former wife Melinda French Gates referred to “muck” in their marriage and said that the Microsoft co-founder still has questions to answer about his ties to the late convicted sex offender.
Fresh allegations from the newly released Epstein files claimed Gates concealed a sexually transmitted disease from his wife after encounters with “Russian girls.” The files, which continue to shed light on Epstein’s extensive celebrity connections, have reignited scrutiny, The Guardian reports.
Gates’s office swiftly dismissed the accusation as “absolutely absurd and completely false.” For weeks, however, the 70-year-old billionaire had remained silent. On Wednesday, he broke that silence in an interview with Australia’s 9News, calling the claim “false” and suggesting Epstein had attempted to smear or extort him. Gates pointed to a 2013 email Epstein wrote to himself, alleging Gates tried to secretly provide antibiotics to Melinda in case she became infected.
“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent. The email is false,” Gates said.
“I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way? Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologize that I did that.”
His remarks came a day after Melinda French Gates spoke to NPR, where she expressed her disapproval of his association with Epstein.
“For me, it’s personally hard whenever those details come up, because it brings back memories of very painful times in my marriage,” she said on the Wild Card podcast.
“Whatever questions remain there of what – I can’t even begin to know all of it – those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me.”
The revelations highlight some of the lowest points in the Gateses’ 27-year marriage, which ended in divorce in 2021, and underscore the lingering fallout from the Epstein scandal more than six years after his death by suicide in a New York jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Gates told 9News he first met Epstein in 2011 and joined him for dinners to discuss potential scientific investments. He insisted he never visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island, where numerous young women were allegedly abused, and denied having relations with any women.
“The focus was always that he knew wealthy people and claimed he could get them to donate to global health. In hindsight, that was a dead end,” Gates said.
“I was foolish to spend time with him. I was one of many who regret ever knowing him. The more that comes out, the clearer it will be that, although my time with him was a mistake, it had nothing to do with that kind of behaviour.”
NPR will release French Gates’s full interview on Thursday, but excerpts published Wednesday show her describing the Epstein files as part of a broader “reckoning as a society.”
Speaking about Epstein’s victims, she said that no girl should ever be put in the situation they were put in by Epstein and the people around him. “It’s beyond heartbreaking. I remember being those ages, I remember my daughters being those ages,” she added.
She added that she had “moved on” from a marriage she felt compelled to leave, and is now “in a really unexpected, beautiful place in my life. I’m so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.”
Asked about her reaction to claims that Gates tried to secretly obtain antibiotics for her, she said she felt “just unbelievable sadness.”
“I’m able to take my own sadness and look at those young girls and say, ‘My God, how did that happen to those girls?’ I hope there’s some justice for those now women. What they went through is unimaginable.”
On Wednesday, Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina voiced support for French Gates’s stance, saying Gates must answer questions. She wrote to House Oversight Committee chair James Comer, who is investigating Epstein’s activities, urging him to subpoena Gates.
“Last night, I watched Melinda Gates’s interview. I immediately asked Chairman James Comer to subpoena Bill Gates. I have questions for Bill Gates about Epstein,” Mace posted on X.
Meanwhile, Bill and Hillary Clinton—also named in the Epstein files—said Monday they would testify before the committee, days before lawmakers were expected to vote on holding them in contempt for initially refusing.
