Bill Gates has addressed the controversial revelations involving his sex life raised in the latest Epstein files, including a sexually explicit email he describes as “false.”
Gates, 70, appeared in Friday’s dump of millions of documents involving the late sex offender. One draft email claimed that the billionaire Microsoft co-founder had “begged” to erase messages about an alleged sexually transmitted disease contracted through “sex with Russian girls.”
The unsent email also contained a request for antibiotics he could secretly give to his wife, Melinda French Gates.
The billionaire is in Melbourne on a work trip to assign medical funding from the Gates Foundation. He refused to comment on the Epstein files when confronted by reporters at the Australian Open tennis finals on the weekend.
In an exclusive interview with Australia’s 9 News on Wednesday, Gates was directly asked about his relationship with Epstein.
Gates said they met in 2011 and he had “a number of dinners” with the disgraced financier over a three-year period.
“The focus was always, he knew a lot of very rich people, and he was saying, he could get them to give money to global health,” Epstein said. “You know, in retrospect, that was a dead end, and I’ve said many times, but I’ll say it again: I was foolish to spend time with him. I was one of many people who regret ever knowing him.”
In a preview of an interview with NPR’s Rachel Martin due for release this week, Gates’ ex-wife said that questions about the latest contents of the Epstein files “are for those people and for even my ex-husband, they need to answer to those things, not me.”
In the 9 News interview, reporter Charles Croucher asked if the latest sordid allegations were true. “No,” Gates replied.
“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself,” Gates said. “Ah, that email was never sent. The email is, you know, false. So I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way? It just reminds me, every minute I spent with him I regret and I, you know, apologize that I did that.”
The reporter followed up, pointing out to Gates that other information in the documents in the files has been proven to be true. “Why would he do this and say this about you?” Croucher asked.
“You know, it’s factually true that I was only at dinners, you know, I never went to the island. I never met any women,” Gates said. “And so, you know, the more that comes out, the more clear it’ll be that, although the time was a mistake, it had nothing to do with that kind of behavior.”
When asked if he was “frustrated” Epstein was still haunting him, Gates said, “Not really. People should hold people who are successful to a very high bar. As these documents come out, they’re going to be closely scrutinized.”
French Gates and Gates were married for 27 years, before their divorce in 2021.
In the NPR preview, French Gates, 61, said her dominant emotion about the situation was “just unbelievable sadness.”
She shared that some of the details in Epstein’s unsent email were “personally hard” because they “bring back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage,” adding, “I left my marriage, I had to leave my marriage, I wanted to leave my marriage.”
French Gates had previously spoken about her anger at Gates’ meetings with Epstein. In a 2022 interview, she also described the only time she’d met Epstein, saying: “He was abhorrent. He was evil personified. I had nightmares about it afterwards.”
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