Philanthropist Melinda French Gates had a sharp response to her ex-husband Bill Gates after allegations surfaced in the most recent trove of Epstein files, showing private emails between the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the former Microsoft CEO.
In the emails, which were part of the more than 3 million documents released by the Department of Justice last week, it was suggested that Bill Gates had additional affairs and had come to Epstein so he could "facilitate trysts with married women and to get medication to treat an STI from 'sex with Russian girls,'" NPR reported Tuesday.
In her first time speaking publicly about the allegations, French Gates responded to the allegations in the Epstein files during a conversation on NPR's "Wild Card" podcast.
"I think we're having a reckoning as a society, right," French Gates said. "No girl, 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, I mean, it's beyond heartbreaking, right? I remember being those ages those girls were. I remember my daughters being those ages, right? So for me, it's personally hard whenever those details come up because it brings back some very, very painful times in my marriage. But I have moved on from that. I purposely pushed it away and I moved on. I'm in a really unexpected, beautiful place in my life."
She pointed to her former husband and others among Epstein's circle — putting the onus on them to respond.
"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," she said. "They need to answer to those things, not me."
Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft, one of the world's largest software companies, and amassed one of the world's largest personal fortunes before transitioning to philanthropic work through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Melinda French Gates is an American businesswoman and philanthropist who was married to Bill Gates for 27 years and served as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation until their divorce in 2021, with the couple having focused their foundation's work on global health, poverty reduction and education initiatives before separating and establishing separate philanthropic endeavors.
The full NPR interview with French Gates was slated to be released on Thursday.