Melinda French Gates Opens Up About Epstein, Divorce, and Her Philanthropic Mission
Melinda French Gates has entered a new phase of life, and it is “beautiful,” she says. Five years after her painful, public divorce from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and two years after stepping down from the Gates Foundation, she now focuses full-time on Pivotal, the philanthropic organization she founded in 2015 to promote women’s empowerment. Her three children have left home, she goes by “Nonna” to her two granddaughters, and as an empty nester, she finds herself with time on her hands.
She visits her local independent bookshop more often, chats with staff about what to read next, and after finishing work at five, she texts a friend to meet for a walk, exploring new Seattle neighborhoods with decaf coffees in hand. She no longer runs daily but insists on a morning stroll to enjoy the natural beauty of her adoptive hometown, with Lake Washington glittering in late-spring light. This morning, she saw a blue heron, she says, sounding almost boastful.
These are remarkably modest hobbies for a woman with an estimated net worth of $30 billion. When pointed out, she explains a quote she read: “Sometimes we go out in the world for discovery and to learn new things, but sometimes you just need to keep walking the path near you. Walk it over and over again, and you’ll start to see things.” After years of frenetic international travel with the Gates Foundation, she chooses the latter.
Pivotal: A New Focus on Women’s Health
Her newfound free time is relative, given that Pivotal is one of the largest private foundations in the US, having pledged $2 billion toward projects supporting women and their families, and received $12.5 billion from Bill Gates in 2024 as part of their settlement agreement. Meeting at Pivotal’s stylish lakeside offices, French Gates, 61, is polished with sleek brunette waves and a golden tan. Billionaire financier Warren Buffett once said Bill is “smart as hell,” but French Gates is “smarter.” She is warm and personable, yet as we discuss the rollback of women’s rights, billionaires behaving badly, and her ex-husband’s involvement with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, she must have a core of steel.
French Gates has said many things contributed to her divorce decision in 2021 after 27 years of marriage, including Bill’s unfaithfulness and his continued contact with Epstein despite her objections. In January 2025, the US Justice Department released Epstein emails, including drafts alleging Bill Gates contracted an STI after extramarital sex with “Russian girls” and planned to secretly give French Gates antibiotics. Gates denies these claims, calling the email false and never sent. In an NPR interview, French Gates said she was happy to be away from “all the muck.”
Why did she speak out? “Well, I had not been silent. I had been asked before what I thought of Epstein, and I had spoken my truth. He was an abhorrent human being, a horrid man. My heart goes out to the young girls. I just spoke the truth, which is they deserve some peace and some justice.” Asked if she feels frustrated that Epstein’s male associates stay silent, she replies, “Bad things happen in darkness. We need to have more transparency.” She understands the secretive, ultra-rich world Epstein moved in and wonders why he got away with his crimes so long. “The justice system didn’t do its job. Full stop. This could have been stopped. If we don’t want children to be harmed, the justice system has to work.” But is there truly a reckoning? “That would be a better question to ask the survivors,” she says.
The Meeting with Epstein
French Gates has said she met Epstein once and found him so repugnant she had nightmares afterwards. Asked what chilled her, her demeanor changes. She looks about to cry, turning to look at the lake. “My heart is racing,” she says, fluttering her hand over her chest. “Have you ever been around somebody that you just know is evil? There you go. You just have your answer. We need to listen to our feelings about people.” She adds, “Any woman who has ever been around somebody who is evil or had an experience… Just no, no.” Her grammar breaks down, showing a visceral reaction.
She experienced panic attacks leading up to her divorce, and her emotional response is real. Moving to wider politics, she becomes herself again. “We have to put women, far more women, in positions of power. It’s why I do the work that I do. When women step into their full power, we have a different lens on society. We are the bedrock of society. We are the bedrock of the family.”
This month, French Gates is committing $215 million in new funding toward women’s health care, split between reproductive health and health in midlife, including menopause. “I’ve always believed if you don’t start with good health, it’s pretty hard to live up to whatever you want to do in your life,” she says. Research shows women experience higher rates of disability and illness, but only 5 cents of every dollar spent on medical research goes to women’s health. “We have under-prioritized women for so long.” For a long time, the medical community treated the male body as default, leaving little known about problems like autoimmune disease and menopause. “It’s like this time in a woman’s life is literally invisible to the world.” Women spend an average of nine years in poor health, half in perimenopause/menopause, leading many to drop out of the workforce.
Reproductive Rights and Family Values
French Gates has funded reproductive healthcare for decades, learning on field trips to Africa and southeast Asia the difference family planning makes. “I’ve seen babies die because women couldn’t space the births.” After the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Pivotal focuses on maternal mortality, perinatal mental health, and reproductive rights in the US. She finds it “devastating” to see abortion rights dismantled. “My granddaughters are growing up with fewer rights than I had. I don’t think women’s health should be a political issue. Women should decide if and when to have a child, in the privacy of our lives, not by our government.” As a Catholic, she once grappled with her faith and reproductive freedom, inviting scholars from Notre Dame to teach her about church history. Now, she is unequivocal: “Only we own our bodies.”
She remains true to her Catholic, middle-class upbringing in Dallas. Her father worked as an aerospace engineer on the Apollo program; her mother was a homemaker. Her parents instilled a strong sense of public responsibility. “We were often volunteering, putting money in the church basket.” She studied computer sciences and earned an MBA at Duke before joining Microsoft in 1987, rising to lead teams developing Microsoft Word, Publisher, and Expedia. She met Bill at work, marrying in 1994.
Before their first child’s birth, she left Microsoft to focus on family and philanthropy. “My ex-husband, his parents were incredibly philanthropic, so it was in both of our DNA. Once we started down that path, it fed on itself.” Over 25 years, the Gates Foundation has given away more than $100 billion to anti-poverty initiatives, vaccine research, and fighting malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis.
French Gates says she met privileged students at Duke and vowed her children wouldn’t be like them. “I really worked hard inside this very large life to ground them.” Though raised in a mega mansion with 24 bathrooms, six kitchens, a trampoline room, and a Leonardo da Vinci manuscript, they did chores, received modest allowances, and volunteered for Seattle community projects. “One of the great compliments I’ll hear is when people meet my oldest daughter and say, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s so normal!’”
Philanthropy in a Changing World
Her philanthropy feels like a throwback to a less cynical time. Social responsibility is no longer in vogue among the wealthiest. Elon Musk, by dismantling USAID, has devoted more effort to taking money from the poorest than giving back. The Giving Pledge, founded with Buffett and Gateses, has seen at least one signatory unsigned, and it’s become fashionable to bash it. French Gates won’t be drawn on Musk, only on those still participating.
Many humanitarian goals are being undermined. USAID’s abolition in 2025 decimated international development, causing at least 600,000 deaths from infectious diseases that year. Conspiracists spread false rumors about the Gateses microchipping children. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spreads vaccine misinformation. “I think it’s terrible anytime something that benefits health gets rolled back. I’ve been in African countries where parents go to great lengths to get kids vaccinated because they know vaccines save lives. To see in 2025 the largest measles cases in 25 years… It seems so senseless.”
When she left the Gates Foundation, she wrote about the “absurdity of so much wealth being concentrated in one person” and that “giving away money your family will never need is not an especially noble act.” Does she want more socially responsible billionaires or an economy that produces fewer? “I think we need more equity in society, so more people not struggling to buy groceries or pay rent. In the US, it’s almost impossible to buy your first house now… The system just isn’t working. We have to do something to create more equity. I don’t know the solution.”
Her answer is cautious, showing a politician’s skill at appearing to answer while giving little away. But she has nothing to sell, no scores to settle, and is not beholden to anyone. When mentioning Bill, she refers to him as “my ex-husband.” Her only reason for speaking to the press is to draw attention to causes she cares about. Her daughter Jennifer once said French Gates told her, “We’re not people who sit around and eat bonbons.” She plans to work full-time for at least another decade. “After that I might start to slow down. It depends how many grandchildren I have,” she jokes, then worries, “No pressure on my kids!”
She doesn’t think much about legacy but wonders about the world for her granddaughters. “I think we’re all only on this Earth for a blink of an eye. I never thought I’d end up with these resources. It’s a huge privilege, but I feel to whom much is given, much is expected.” Her values haven’t shifted since high school, when she quoted Bessie Anderson Stanley: “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, that is to have succeeded.” By this measure, she has been astronomically successful. “I don’t dwell on those things,” she says. It’s the individual stories that move her, like a mother in Alabama helped through childbirth after losing a baby. That brings her “great joy.” Her divorce and Epstein fall-out took a huge toll, but her work brings purpose and solace. Is she happy? “Very happy,” she says with real feeling.
