Melinda French Gates just opened up about her “unbelievably painful” divorce from Bill Gates in a candid interview with Fortune magazine, which was published on Monday, October 3rd. The 66-year-old Microsoft co-founder and the 58-year-old philanthropist filed for divorce in May 2021 after 27 years of marriage, with the billionaire computer programmer’s alleged infidelities (one of which he confessed to shortly after the news of their divorce hit the headlines) being one of the things that led to it.
In an interview with Gayle King on CBS Mornings back in March, French Gates said, “It wasn’t one moment or one specific thing that happened. There just came a point in time when I realized there was enough there where I knew it wasn’t healthy and I couldn’t trust what we had.”
French Gates didn’t directly mention the affair in the new interview, but she told Fortune that she "couldn’t stay in that marriage" any longer than she had to! And although some may have thought that they went through divorce during the worst time – i.e., during the Covid-19 pandemic – in hindsight, it turned out to be a blessing, as it gave her and her ex-husband the privacy they needed!
"I had some reasons I just couldn't stay in that marriage anymore," French Gates told the pub. "But the odd thing about Covid is that it gave me the privacy to do what I needed to do. It's unbelievably painful, in innumerable ways, but I had the privacy to get through it."
One of the reasons the Gates' wanted privacy during the tough divorce process was to protect their three children, Jennifer, 25, Rory, 23, and Phoebe, 19. "My main concern, of course, was trying to protect my kids through it," French Gates said. "And we got to the other side."
It isn't just the children that Bill and Melinda have a joint interest in, as they still run their Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation together, which Melinda touched on in the interview. Referencing how she has to put her personal feelings to one side and be the best version of herself for the sake of keeping up appearances for the business, Melinda confessed: "I also kept working with the person I was moving away from, and I need to show up and be my best self every single day. So even though I might be crying at 9am and then have to be on a videoconference at 10am with the person I’m leaving, I have to show up and be my best."
