Melinda French Gates Says Jeffrey Epstein Helped Break Up Bill Gate Marriage

Melinda French Gates admitted in an interview on Thursday that she Divorce from Bill Gates came about in part because of his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“It was a lot of things. But I didn’t like that he dated Jeffrey Epstein,” she said told Gayle King from CBS Mornings. “I made that clear to him.”

French Gates said she met the sex offender “exactly once because I wanted to see who this man was. And I regretted it from the second I walked in the door.

“He was despicable. He was evil personified. I had nightmares about it afterwards. So my heart breaks for these young women.”

As The Daily Beast reported in May, French Gates had done so warned her ex-husband about Epstein after meeting the disgraced financier at his Upper East Side mansion in 2013, people familiar with the matter said last year.

Bill Gates issued a statement to CBS saying his meetings with Epstein constituted a “significant error of judgment” and an “error that I deeply regret.”

The former billionaire couple remain “friendly” but not friends, French Gates said, though they continue to jointly oversee their eponymous foundation, one of the largest private charities in the world.

In the CBS interview, she offered additional details about their 27-year marriage.

“The day I got married, I never thought I would get a divorce,” she said.

While Bill Gates has admitted to having at least one fling during their marriage, “I thought we worked through some of that,” she said. “At some point there was so much that I realized that it’s just not healthy. And I couldn’t trust what we had.”

She declined to confirm rumors Gates had several affairs during their marriage, saying, “These are questions Bill needs to answer.”

French Gates said she knew the announcement of her divorce last spring would come as a surprise to many people, and that the breakup of her marriage was naturally painful.

“I had many tears for many days. I mean days where I’m literally on the carpet,” she said.

“I was definitely angry. I mean, this is painful stuff. And at the end of the day I’ve started this healing journey and I feel like I’m starting to get to the other side.”

French Gates currently valued at $6.2 billion forbes Estimated to be open to finding love again, she told King, “I hope that happens to me again. You know, I dip my toe in this water.”