Billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates told NPR's "Wild Card" podcast the release of the Epstein files has reopened "painful times" in her marriage to ex-husband Bill Gates. Rachel Martin, the host of that podcast, and former federal prosecutor Kristy Greenberg join Chris Jansing to discuss more about the conversation.
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In a stunning and unexpected interview, billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates is now opening up after allegations against her ex-husband, Bill Gates, were included in this last drop of the Epstein files. Here she is talking to NPR's Wildcard podcast.
No girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him. Whatever questions remain there, of what I don't—can't even begin to know all of it. Those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me. At least for me, I've been able to move on in life, and I hope there's some justice for those now women.
The files included Epstein making unverified claims about Gates's sexual relationships, which a spokesperson for Bill Gates has called false. Melinda French-Gates has said it was in part her ex's relationship with Epstein that led her to seek a divorce. Joining me now, the reporter who spoke with Melinda French-Gates, Rachel Martin, host of NPR's Wildcard.
Rachel, first of all, take us inside your conversation with Melinda. It occurred to me she's a pretty media-savvy person. She hasn't talked a lot about the accusations that have... she talked about her personal life. Do you have a sense of why she decided to talk about this now?
Because I asked her. I mean, I will just say first off that our show is not a news show. Wildcard is a show about a person's interior life, about how they make sense of themselves, how they make sense of the world. And I had already scheduled this conversation with Melinda for that day, right after this weekend when this latest crunch of emails related to Jeffrey Epstein was released. And so in that context, I felt like I had to ask her how it was sitting with her. And, you know, she could have just said, 'I've said what I want to say. I'm not going to talk about this anymore.' And to her credit, I mean, she was really forthcoming. She centered, first and foremost, the experience of the young girls and the very young women who were victimized by Jeffrey Epstein and everyone around him. And overall, I mean, it's just such an awful, awful story. And, you know, she was very honest about how it played into her divorce and pushed her to separate herself from their joint foundation and to go her own way. And she was very clear that she has moved on. It's taken her a long time to rebuild trust as she moves forward, but she has moved on.
6 more exchanges in this transcript
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Gates, M. (2026, February 4). Melinda French Gates says ex-husband Bill Gates must 'answer to' Epstein files claims [Interview transcript]. MS NOW. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/690132/
MLA
Melinda Gates. "Melinda French Gates says ex-husband Bill Gates must 'answer to' Epstein files claims." MS NOW, 4 Feb. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/690132/.
BibTeX
@misc{gates2026_690132,
author = {Melinda Gates},
title = {Melinda French Gates says ex-husband Bill Gates must 'answer to' Epstein files claims},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, MS NOW. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {feb},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/690132/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
