“Falled up” “
Melinda Gates reveals triggers for separation from Bill
Melinda Gates reveals triggers for separation from Bill
02.04.2025, 10:17 p.m.
Listen article
This audio version was artificially generated. More information
Having a lot of money does not protect against private problems. The marriage of Melinda and Bill Gates failed a few years ago. The 60-year-old reveals in her new book, which ultimately led to the all-changing conversation between the two.
At the end of January, Microsoft founder Bill Gates spoke about his divorce from ex-wife Melinda French Gates. He sees the separation in the British newspaper “The Times” as “the mistake I regret the most”. In her new book “The Next Day”, which will be released on April 15, the 60-year-old also reviews. For the US magazine “People” she has already revealed a few pages with the biggest changes in her life.
Although there were “difficult phases” with Gates before, the businesswoman wrote in her book, at the end of 2019 she suffered from a beautiful house that collapsed around her. At night after night, she was awakened in panic.
In her memoirs, Melinda describes that her dreams finally turn into a vision of her and Bill and her three children on the edge of a cliff while she “plunged into nothing”. “As dramatic it sounds,” she writes. “At that moment I knew that I had to make a decision – and that I had to meet her alone.”
First of all, Melinda tried to suppress her concerns, but it didn’t work. On a vacation in New Mexico in February 2020, the native Texan informed her husband on the last evening that she wanted to live separately – and that she would stay in her house with her youngest daughter Phoebe. “It was one of the scary conversations I’ve ever had,” she writes in the book and remembers that Bill was “sad and upgraded”, but also “understanding and respectful”.
The divorce followed
At home in Seattle, the couple continued to work at the joint Gates Foundation and even appeared together. But in the summer, Melinda explained to the billionaire that she wanted divorce. She knew that the coming months would be hard. “Bill has a reputation to be one of the toughest negotiators in the world,” she reveals in the book and adds to have received panic attacks when thinking. Therapy helped her.
The process of the final separation was “grueling” and surprisingly lengthy, writes the philanthropin, but when the couple agreed, everything went quickly. On May 3, 2021, they submitted a separation declaration together. “It requires courage to live a different life,” says Melinda “People”.
In the current issue of the magazine, the American also reveals that she is lined up again. She was “very, very happy”, but would rather not name the name of her partner. Around five months ago, Melinda was seen in New York City hand in hand with the tech entrepreneur Philip Vaughn. In February 2023, Bill Gates announced that he was lined up with Paula Hurd, the widow of the former Oracle manager Mark Hurd.
