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”.
I don’t think Bill has actually been accused of anything criminal, has he? Even if the stuff about getting STDs is true, there’s nothing to indicate the women involved weren’t adults.
I honestly don’t know the full extent of the accusations against Gates. But more generally, even if the people involved were adults, how do we know it wasn’t criminal? How do we know the women were involved consensually? And for those that did “consent”, how do we know it wasn’t due to coercion and the enormous wealth and power imbalances at play? The pictures of Gates released with one of the previous dumps sure don’t make it look like everyone was happy to be there with him… obviously a lot of this is speculation, but I’m weary of using the logic of adult = not criminal activity.