Almost a year after Melinda Gates and Bill Gates ended their 27-year marriage, she says the breakup wasn’t sole caused by the affair the Microsoft co-founder admitted to after the split.
Melinda said that their split wasn’t due to a single instance. “I certainly believe in forgiveness, so I thought we had worked through some of that,” she said. “It wasn’t one moment or one specific thing that happened. There just came a point in time where there was enough there that I realized it just wasn’t healthy, and I couldn’t trust what we had.”
Melinda admitted that she shed “a lot of tears for many days” over the breakup and that she spent “laying on the carpet, thinking, ‘How can this be? How can I get up? How am I gonna move forward?’ And days I certainly was angry. That’s part of the grieving process. You’re grieving a loss of something you thought you had and thought you had for your lifetime. This is painful stuff.” However, Melinda said that at the end of the day, she “started on this journey of healing, and I feel like I’m starting to get to the other side. I do feel like I’m turning the page in the chapter, now.” She added, “I’m actually really excited about what’s to come in life ahead for me.”
Bill and Melinda announced their divorce in May 2021. “After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage. Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all to lead healthy, productive lives,” the couple said in a statement. Two weeks later, the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft’s board of directors moved to remove Bill from its board in 2020 following an investigation into Bill’s affair with an employee. Bill’s spokesperson issued a statement saying the affair happened “almost 20 years ago, which ended amicably. Bill’s decision to transition off the board was in no way related to this matter.”