You’d think that Bill Gates has several regrets, but he says there’s one that trumps them all.
In a profile with the UK’s The Times published Saturday, the Microsoft co-founder called his split from his wife of 27 years, Melinda French Gates, his biggest blunder.
“That was the mistake I most regret,” he told the British outlet, later adding:
“You would have to put that at the top of the list. There are others but none that matter. The divorce thing was miserable for me and Melinda for at least two years.”
Bill and Melinda Gates announced their separation in 2021, and share three adult children, Jennifer Gates Nassar, 28; Rory Gates, 25; and Phoebe Gates, 22.
“There is a certain wonderfulness to spending your entire adult life with one person because of the memories and depth of things you have done and having kids together,” Gates told the outlet. “When Melinda and I met, I was fairly successful but not ridiculously successful — that came during the time that we were together. So, she saw me through a lot.”
French Gates’ support of her ex-husband included doing the bulk of the child-rearing, Gates admits.
“I spent more time with the kids than my dad did, but the ratio was still 10:1, with Melinda doing most things for the kids. We had a great time,” the billionaire said.
A family wasn’t the only thing the former couple built together. They also founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — one of the largest charitable foundations in the world. French Gates resigned as co-chair last year, and their charity was renamed Gates Foundation.
The philanthropist told the Times that his ex’s resignation “disappointed” him.
“When we got divorced it was tough and then she made the decision to leave the foundation — I was disappointed that she took the option to go off,” Gates said.
French Gates has opened up about how awkward it was for her to continue her work at the foundation while going through a divorce with Gates.
“I kept working with the person I was moving away from, and I needed to show up and be my best self every single day,” she told Fortune magazine in 2022. “So even though I might be crying at 9 a.m. and then have to be on a video conference at 10 a.m. with the person I’m leaving, I have to show up and be my best.”
French Gates has also expressed some of her reasons for wanting to end her marriage to Gates, telling “CBS This Morning” in 2022 that “not one thing, but many things” ultimately led to the split.
“It wasn’t one moment or one specific thing that happened,” French Gates told host Gayle King. “There just came a point in time where there was enough there where I realized it just wasn’t healthy, and I couldn’t trust what we had.”
French Gates also admitted to CBS that one of things that contributed to the unraveling of their marriage was Gates’ connection to late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“I did not like that he’d had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no,” she said. “I made that clear to him. … [Epstein] was abhorrent. He was evil personified. I had nightmares about it afterward.”
When reached for comment by CBS, Gates released a statement in which he called his ties to Epstein “a mistake that I regret deeply” and “a substantial error in judgement.”
Although French Gates has taken steps to move on from her marriage, Gates told the Times that they still interact.
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“Melinda and I still see each other — we have three kids and two grandchildren so there are family events,” Gates said. “The kids are doing well. They have good values.”