Billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates has said her ex-husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, being named in new files relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein dredged up “painful times in my marriage”.

She told an NPR podcast she feels “unbelievable sadness” about the Epstein allegations and that the people named in the records, including her former husband, need to answer to it.

“I am so happy to be away from all the muck,” she said. The couple divorced in 2021 after 27 years of marriage.

Records released by the US justice department include an allegation by Epstein that Bill Gates caught a sexually transmitted disease. He has called the claim “absolutely absurd”.

  • lennybird@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Holy shit some of these comments are fucking gross and victim-blamey in here. Why the fuck is Melinda the target here any differently than the victims themselves who didn’t speak up until later?

    I think we all know why none did, just as none of you would in all reality: fear, and who would actually listen without proof?

    See the #MeToo movement, how that backfired for so many women, let alone trying to take down one of the richest people of all time. Also for those who paid attention, Melinda had long heavily hinted at this shit.

    • pachrist@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      I think most people’s issue is that all she’s ever done is hint, and now that there is less reason than ever to hint, that’s all she continues to do.

      This case needs someone to step up, corroborate the documents, and speak out so some of these things can be unredacted. She, as a billionaire, is best equipped, but chose to keep hinting on a podcast tour instead, and in the current climate, that makes people suspicious.

      • giantripdrop@piefed.social
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        2 hours ago

        I am just speculating here, like everyone else is, but she is probably just hinting because she doesn’t know shit.

        “My ex-husband, billionaire tech mogul Bill Gates, used to hang out with Jeff Epstein. Bill would occasionally meet up with him” is the extent should could say and prove. The rest is hearsay.

    • 1984@lemmy.today
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      3 hours ago

      Yup. If she would have went to the press without evidence, she would not have been believed. Still today people here are very quick to call someone a conspiracy theorist, including probably most of the people in this thread. They would have been attacking her. Not a single doubt in my mind about that.

      So at the same time as people say someone should speak up, they keep attacking people who does, unless their sources are accepted as evidence by official media sources.

      I dont blame her for being quiet, not at all.

      • Timecircleline@sh.itjust.works
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        2 hours ago

        Still victim blaming. How do you decide what someone else chooses to be called? 27 years is a long time, and there are a lot of good reasons to hold onto a name even after the person you shared it with turns out to be bad for you. Does everyone who estranges from their father need to change their last name if that’s who they got it from?

    • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 hours ago

      Why the fuck is Melinda the target here any differently than the victims themselves who didn’t speak up until later?

      She’s another billionaire who directly or indirectly benefitted from that circle

      • lennybird@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        How did she benefit, apart from what I thought people around these parts would’ve been gleeful to hear that she “took from the rich,” and gave much of that money away?

        It was a failed marriage; the more she learned, the more she was disgusted. She took the money and left. We don’t even fucking know if she isn’t partly a victim herself. Nevertheless she’s speaking up now, which she in no way had to.

        Yet some here would paint her as Ghislaine Maxwell herself, what the fuck?