A “combo of things” led Bill and Melinda Gates to end their marriage of 27 years, but they are not likely to reveal their differences in divorce court or in the court of public opinion.
That’s because the Microsoft co-founder and his philanthropist wife want to present a unified front for the sake of their eponymous Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, reportedly the largest private foundation in the world, according to People.
Even if Bill and Melinda Gates are no longer married, the soon-to-be ex-spouses plan to keep working together at the foundation, which has provided billions of dollars since 2000 to promote global health initiatives, which include fighting AIDS and malaria, providing communities with clean water and alleviating poverty.
Their reasons for uniting behind the foundation aren’t entirely altruistic, a source close to the couple told People magazine. They have one specific aspiration in mind: the Nobel Prize.
“They were really interested in trying to win a Nobel Prize,” the source says. “So one thing that was part of this is, if it gets worse, then it ends that. It seems as if that was on the agenda, and that’s for both of them.”
Melinda Gates, 56, filed for divorce from her husband, 65, on Monday, with her petition stating that their marriage was “irretrievably broken,” People and other outlets reported. In a joint statement posted to Twitter, the couple said they “no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives.”
The divorce documents also indicate that Bill and Melinda Gates have a separation agreement in place — something People’s source said is probably part of their plan to keep things as civil and private as possible.
“Nobody is going to want to invite more scrutiny because it’ll hurt their credibility,” the source told People “I don’t think they’re so angry that anybody wants to take each other down, like you sometimes see. (Melinda is) not incentivized for that.”
The divorce, according to the source, was a long time coming, based on a combination of things. However, the Gates held off until the youngest of their three children, daughter Phoebe, turned 18.
“It’s absolutely because their youngest child is graduating from high school, and the idea was that they stayed together through that,” the source told People. “They limped through until their kids were out of school like a lot of people.”
The Gates also are parents to son Rory, 21, and daughter Jennifer, 25, who called her parents’ split “a challenging stretch of time for our whole family.”
Other reports this week have offered glimpses into certain compromises the Gates may have made in their marriage or issues that caused tensions.
For example, Bill Gates continued to take vacations with his ex-girlfriend, Ann Winblad, after he married Melinda. Gates and Winblad, a software analyst-turned entrepreneur, dated from 1984 to 1987.
Their bond remained strong enough that Bill Gates asked Winblad’s permission to marry Melinda in 1994. He also made an arrangement with Melinda Gates that allowed him to continue meeting up with Winblad every spring for a long weekend at her beach cottage in North Carolina, according to reporting by journalist Walter Isaacson in a 1997 story for Time magazine. Gates and Winblad would ride dune buggies, hang-glide and walk on the beach.
Winblad said in the Time article: “We share our thoughts about the world and ourselves. And we marvel about how, as two young overachievers, we began a great adventure on the fringes of a little-known industry and it landed us at the center of an amazing universe.”
Meanwhile, the Daily Beast reported this week that Melinda Gates had grown increasingly uncomfortable with her husband’s friendship with the late financier and pedophile J,effrey Epstein. The Daily Beast cited a New York Times report that said that Gates and Epstein met on numerous occasion, starting in 2011, until the friendship fizzled in 2014.
Gates reportedly introduced Melinda Gates to Epstein in 2013 at Epstein’s Upper East Side mansion, with the Daily Beast saying that the financier made her very “uncomfortable.”
This meeting occurred five years after Epstein pleaded guilty to a charge of soliciting an underage girl in Florida following a widespread investigation into allegations that he sexually abused multiple girls and young women and groomed them to have sex with his rich and famous friends.
After Epstein served a jail sentence for the solicitation charge and registered as a sex offender in New York state in 2010, he tried to return to high society and began courting friendships with leaders in tech and academia, including Gates.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on new federal sex trafficking charges.
A tech associate of Gates told the Daily Beast it was surprising that Gates was interested in cultivating business or philanthropic ties with Epstein. At one point, Epstein reportedly bragged about being Gates’ unofficial adviser and tax consultant, a claim that Gates’ representatives denied.
The person wasn’t surprised that Melinda Gates was put off by Epstein, saying “a lot of people were uncomfortable with Epstein,” completely independent of his sexual misconduct.
“He just was an obnoxious guy. He almost made a point of having bad manners, not paying attention at dinner,” the person told the Daily Beast. “I could see how anybody, even without suspicions, would not want to be around him.”
