Associated Press; Reuters
- Melinda French Gates found her interaction with Jeffrey Epstein to be “unsettling,” according to a recent publication.
- She described meeting him only once in 2013, an experience she regretted almost immediately.
- Her former spouse, Bill Gates, had past dealings with the late convicted sex offender, which she strongly disapproved of.
A recently published book has shed light on Melinda French Gates’s brief yet troubling interaction with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The billionaire philanthropist had previously vocalized her aversion to the late convict and his association with her ex-spouse during a 2022 interview featured on CBS.
French Gates recounted meeting Epstein just “one time,” and the details provided in Anupreeta Das’s new book offer fresh insights into that unsettling evening at his extravagant residence in 2013. The work titled Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World, reveals that her dinner experience within Epstein’s opulent seven-story New York estate left her feeling profoundly disturbed.
“The entrance area spanned two floors. One wall was adorned with framed photographs of prominent male figures, including former President Bill Clinton. By the marble staircase were decorative female figurines dressed provocatively,” writes Das as she describes Epstein’s now-infamous home near Central Park.
This description draws comparison to a profile featured in Vanity Fair, which detailed another unsettling aspect of his residence: rows of framed glass eyes crafted for injured soldiers lined his entryway. From the moment she stepped inside, French Gates felt an overwhelming sense of discomfort. “I regretted it from the second I walked through the door,” she stated incredulously during her CBS interview from 2022. “He embodied everything reprehensible.”
US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York
The same year marked times when Bill Gates appeared to be informally advocating for a Nobel Peace Prize based on their foundation’s efforts aimed at eliminating polio. According to Das’s narrative, Epstein suggested he could assist them in this endeavor.
Throughout this uncomfortable dinner setting, French Gates reportedly remained visibly uneasy and later confided in friends about her anger regarding Bill’s unwillingness to sever ties with such a controversial individual.
The former co-chairperson of their philanthropic foundation has been candid about delineating her objections towards Bill’s connections with Epstein publicly. In fact, she admitted directly stating how displeased she felt about their meetings during an earlier CBS interview.
A spokesperson representing Bill Gate responded generally about Das’s new publication by asserting: “This book leans heavily on hearsay from secondary sources along with anonymous claims while presenting exaggerated allegations and falsehoods that overlook documented evidence we provided repeatedly.” They did not directly address specific questions stemming from Business Insider related specifically to this incident but highlighted that he regarded meeting Eben either as an enormous blunder or miscalculation overall despite initial intentions being otherwise—“I didn’t recognize then how my meetings would imply validating him,” he confessed,(source). Around this period uncertainty clouded over what potential implications these discussions held while simultaneously grieving losses experienced throughout changing personal circumstances.
