Though they’re “serious,” Bill Gates and his girlfriend, Paula Hurd, are also “having fun.”
“I’m lucky to have a serious girlfriend named Paula,” the Microsoft co-founder told Savannah Guthrie on Tuesday’s episode of the “Today” show.
“We’re having fun. Going to the [Paris] Olympics and lots of great things,” he added, marking the first time he’s spoken openly about his relationship.
Gates, 69, and the widow of late Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd were photographed at a few events together in 2022, but their romance didn’t make headlines until early 2023.
“They’re inseparable,” a friend of the pair told the Daily Mail that February.
“They’ve been together over a year, and she’s always described as a ‘mystery woman,’ but it’s no mystery to their inner circle that they’re in a romantic relationship.”
The duo run in the same circles and had crossed paths before Mark’s death in October 2019, thanks to their mutual love of tennis. In fact, Gates and Paula were snapped sitting in the same box at a match in 2015.
They went on to make their red carpet debut as a couple in April 2024 while stepping out for the Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.
Gates — who was married to his ex-wife, Melinda Gates, for 27 years — admitted in an interview with the Times of London last month that the unravelling of that union was the “mistake” he “most regret[s].”
When his comments came up during his sit-down with Gutherie, the tech tycoon explained, “My business career, although there’s been some ups and downs, has been incredibly phenomenal. My kids are phenomenal. So it’s even hard for me to complain about things.”
He added, “I’ve moved past the divorce, and Melinda’s doing well. I’ve got a lot of work that I love to do. So I’m not really complaining about anything.”
When Guthrie, 53, asked whether he wished he could “wave a magic wand [and] it wouldn’t have happened,” Gates confessed that he “wouldn’t go that far.”
“Even despite the fact that the divorce wasn’t great, having those three kids, the work we were able to do together — even if I knew that it wouldn’t last forever, I would still do it again,” he shared.
Bill and Melinda, 60, are parents to daughter Jennifer Gates, 28, son Rory Gates, 25, and daughter Phoebe Gates, 22.
The former spouses announced their divorce in May 2021; however, Melinda later revealed they had been living separate lives for about a year prior.
Their split was finalized in August 2021, and Melinda has since moved on with entrepreneur Philip Vaughn.
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