Melinda French Gates discusses her 'beautiful' new phase of life five years post-divorce from Bill Gates, focusing on her philanthropic organization Pivotal. She shares insights into her personal hobbies, her children leaving home, and her commitment to women's empowerment and health. The article also touches on her candid reflections on her divorce, Bill Gates's past actions, and her visceral reaction to Jeffrey Epstein.
The article details Melinda French Gates's life five years after her divorce from Bill Gates and two years after stepping down from the Gates Foundation. She describes her new phase as 'beautiful,' enjoying simple pleasures like visiting bookshops, walking with friends, and morning strolls. Now an empty nester and 'Nonna' to two granddaughters, she dedicates her full attention to Pivotal, her philanthropic organization founded in 2015, which focuses on women's empowerment. Pivotal has pledged $2 billion and received an additional $12.5 billion from Bill Gates in 2024. French Gates reflects on her divorce, attributing it partly to Bill Gates's infidelity and his continued contact with Jeffrey Epstein despite her objections. She addresses recent revelations from Epstein's emails concerning Bill Gates, which Gates denies. French Gates states she is happy to be away from 'all the muck' and that the men involved must answer for their actions. She expresses a strong, visceral reaction when discussing Epstein, whom she describes as 'evil,' emphasizing the failure of the justice system to stop him and the need for transparency. She highlights her commitment to fighting modern misogyny by empowering women and announces $215 million in new funding for women's healthcare, including reproductive health and midlife health (like menopause), areas she believes are severely under-prioritized. French Gates, a Catholic, unequivocally supports a woman's right to abortion, stating, 'Only we own our bodies.' The article also touches on her upbringing, her career at Microsoft, and the shared philanthropic values with Bill Gates that led to the Gates Foundation's extensive work. She discusses her efforts to keep her children grounded despite their immense wealth and her concern about the decline of social responsibility among some billionaires and the undermining of humanitarian goals by vaccine misinformation. French Gates emphasizes the need for more equity in society and plans to continue her full-time work for at least another decade, driven by the belief that 'to whom much is given, much is expected.' She finds great joy and purpose in the individual stories of lives touched by her work and expresses that she is 'very happy.'
