‘IT WAS A GREAT MARRIAGE’

Bill Gates: I’m Friends With Melinda, Despite What She Says

In a new interview, Bill Gates sought to convey that he and Melinda French Gates are still on great terms.

In a new interview, Bill Gates painted a more equanimous portrait of his marriage to and ongoing relationship with Melinda French Gates, who offered a harsher take in a separate interview in March.

That month, French Gates pointedly told CBS broadcaster Gayle King that while she and Bill still work together on “friendly” terms, they’ve grown distant to the point that she would not consider him a friend. “That might come over time. But for me, there’s still healing that needs to happen,” she said.

Gates apparently sees things differently.

In an article published on Sunday, a columnist for the British newspaper The Sunday Times asked Gates if the former couple remain friends. “I would say that. In an interview she chose not to use that word, but I’ll use it,” the billionaire replied. “We have a, you know, super important, complex, close relationship where we’ve chosen to work together.”

The interview also touched on Gates’ ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which French Gates cited as one of “many” reasons for their split. As The Daily Beast has previously detailed, he and Epstein met numerous times years after the financier had pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor.

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In her interview in March, French Gates had directed questions about those interactions to Bill. He largely demurred in Sunday’s article, stating simply of his behavior: “At the time, I didn’t realize that by having those meetings it would be seen as giving him credibility. You’re almost saying, ‘I forgive that type of behavior,’ or something. So clearly the way it’s seen, I made a huge mistake not understanding that.”

Now, as both an empty nester and divorcé, things are lonely at Gates’ gargantuan Seattle home, Xanadu 2.0. “It feels too big most of the time. I am only a small-sized person,” he told The Sunday Times.

And though he acknowledges mistakes and is “grieving” the divorce, the world’s fourth-richest man says he ultimately has no regrets. “From my point of view it was a great marriage. I wouldn’t have changed it,” he said.

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Noah KirschWealth and Power Reporter

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