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Melinda Gates has released a new memoir titled The Next Day.
And while her split from billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates has been mostly amicable, he’s probably not entirely thrilled with the way he’s portrayed in his ex’s new book.
Though the dissolution of her marriage is not the central focus of the memoir, Melinda does provide new details pertaining to the events of 2019, the year, she says, when her relationship with Bill began to crumble.
The beginning of the end for Bill and Melinda
“That October, things had reached a fever pitch when The New York Times published a deeply disturbing article that raised serious questions about Bill’s conduct — questions that suggested he had betrayed not only our marriage but also my values,” reads a section of the book excerpted today by Page Six.
According to Page Six, the article Melinda refers to contained information about Bill’s alleged affairs, as well as his meetings with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Melinda first expressed her displeasure with the Epstein meetings in a 2022 interview:
“I did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no. I made that clear to him,” she said at the time.
She admits to meeting with Epstein once, because she “wanted to see who” he was. But she says she instantly regretted the decision.
“I regretted it the second I walked in the door,” Melinda said. “He was abhorrent. He was evil personified. My heart breaks for these women.”
Bill eventually came to share Melinda’s low opinion of Epstein.
“In retrospect, I was foolish to spend any time with him,” he recently told the Wall Street Journal while promoting his own memoir, Source Code.
“I think I was quite stupid. I thought it would help me with global health philanthropy. In fact, it failed to do that. It was just a huge mistake.”
According to the outlet, Epstein threatened to expose Bill’s alleged affair with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova in 2017 after the tech billionaire declined to join his charitable fund with JPMorgan Chase.
A new day
In her book, which hit stores Tuesday, Melinda wrote that leaving her marriage “was one of the hardest and most important things I’ve ever done.”
These days, both parties have moved on to new relationships: her with entrepreneur boyfriend, Philip Vaughn, him with philanthropist Paula Hurd.
Insiders say Bill and Melinda have been amicably co-parenting their three children — but it sounds like Melinda would be the first to admit that the split was not always an easy one.
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