In an interview with Fortune Magazine, Melinda French Gates talked openly about her divorce from her ex-husband, billionaire Bill Gates.
After nearly 30 years of marriage, Melinda, 58, and Bill, 66, announced their intention to divorce in May 2021. The divorce was finalized in August 2021, but the former couple still co-manages their foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
According to French Gates, she was conscious every day that she needed to be her “best self” at work. She did, however, mention that it wasn’t always easy as there were days she “might be crying at 9 am and then have to be on a videoconference at 10 am with the person I’am leaving”.
“I also kept working with the person I was moving away from, and I need to show up and be my best self every single day,” she said.
It’s unbelievably painful, in innumerable ways: Melinda
Working with people who were going through difficult times during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the women’s rights advocate, helped her get through these times.
“We work with unbelievable partners around the world who were also struggling during Covid. I was on a video call with a woman who had lost her father, and a week later she’s on a call with me, right?” Melinda mentioned, “It reminded me that the foundation calls me to be my best.”
French Gates also admitted that the couple’s three children, Jennifer, 25, Rory, 23, and Phoebe, 19, were her “main concern” at the time.
During the interview, she also spoke about her divorce from her husband of 27 years, and how the pandemic provided her with the “privacy” to end her marriage as well as the “privacy to get through it.”
“I had some reasons I just couldn’t stay in that marriage anymore,” she said. “But the odd thing about Covid is that it gave me the privacy to do what I needed to do. It’s unbelievably painful, in innumerable ways, but I had the privacy to get through it.”
The two continue to run their foundation together
When asked if her divorce changed the way she sees the world or the way the world sees her, French Gates said she doesn’t think about either because she knows who she is and what she “stands for.”
“I don’t really think about it, to be honest. Because I know who I am, and I know what I stand for,” she said.
Bill Gates has also spoken out about the emotions he felt at the end of his marriage, stating in a blog post published on his GatesNotes blog in December 2021 that it had been a year of “great personal sadness.”
The two continue to run the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, together.
Melinda Gates stated that she and her ex-husband remained “friends” and kept their professional connections in a March interview with CBS.
