Bill Gates Admits to Affairs with 2 Russian Women While Married to Melinda and Apologizes to Staff for Past Epstein Ties

Bill Gates this week admitted to having two affairs with Russian women while married to Melinda French Gates and apologized to staff at his charity for his past ties to sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein — while maintaining he was not part of anything “illicit.”

“I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” the billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder, 70, said in a town hall for his Gates Foundation on Tuesday, Feb. 24, according to a recording reviewed by the The Wall Street Journal.

A spokesperson for Gates tells PEOPLE in a statement that “this was a scheduled townhall with employees, which Bill does twice a year. In the conversation, Bill answered questions submitted by foundation staff on a range of issues, including the release of the Epstein files, the foundation’s work in AI, and the future of global health.”

“In the townhall, Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions,” the spokesperson says.

Scrutiny has been renewed around Gates’ history with Epstein — who died in federal custody in 2019 after being accused of human trafficking — because a trove of documents released by the U.S. Justice Department showed yearsold draft emails Epstein wrote himself in which he accused Gates of contracting a sexually transmitted infection from “Russian girls” and then asking for Epstein’s help in order to hide it from his then-wife.

A spokesperson for Gates had previously called those claims from Epstein “absolutely absurd and completely false.”

However, Gates acknowledged on Tuesday, he’d had affairs with a “Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events and one with a Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities.”

Epstein learned of these, he said. The “bridge player” was identified by the Journal in 2023 as Mila Antonova, who reportedly met Gates around 2010 when she was in her 20s.

SXSW/Getty; Hollie Adams/Bloomberg via Getty

Gates told his staff that he “never spent any time with victims, the women around [Epstein],” according to the Journal.

He also said it was a “huge mistake to spend time with Epstein” after first meeting the sex offender in 2011 — long after Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution. He said they spent time together until 2014 but he never spent a night around Epstein or on one of his now infamous island properties.

“I apologize to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made,” he said.

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Gates has previously said he was seeking charitable donations, reiterating as recently as earlier this month that “the focus was always he knew a lot of very rich people, and he was saying he could get them to give money to global health. In retrospect, that was a dead end.”

He said this week that he did not properly check Epstein’s background but was aware of some “18-month thing” that had limited Epstein’s travel.

“Knowing what I know now makes it, you know, a hundred times worse in terms of not only his crimes in the past, but now it’s clear there was ongoing bad behavior,” Gates said, according to the Journal.

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During the town hall, Gates credited his ex — who split from him in 2021 and who recently spoke out herself and said he needed to “answer” for connections with Epstein — for being “skeptical” of the latter.

Gates ultimately said that his past with Epstein and the newly disclosed emails have cast a shadow over the foundation’s work and its reputation.

“It definitely is the opposite of the values of the foundation and the goals of the foundation,” he said. “And our work is very reputational sensitive. I mean, people can choose to work with us or not work with us.”

Reuters

Bill Gates “took responsibility for his actions” and addressed his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a meeting with staff from his charitable foundation, the organisation said.

“Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail,” the Gates Foundation said in a statement.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Gates apologised to staff, said he had two affairs with Russian women which Epstein later found out about, and in relation to the late financier said: “I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit.”

Gates has come under renewed scrutiny over his relationship with Epstein following the release of files by the US Department of Justice in January.

The Microsoft co-founder, 70, has not been accused of wrongdoing by any of Epstein’s victims.

The WSJ reported that Gates said it was a “huge mistake to spend time with Epstein”, but insisted he “never spent any time with victims, the women around him”.

“I apologise to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made,” he told staff, according to the US newspaper, which said it had reviewed a recording of Gates’s remarks.

It reported that Gates said images of him with women, whose faces are redacted, included in the so-called Epstein files were pictures that the late financier asked him to take with his assistants after their meetings.

US House Oversight Committee

An image released by the US House Oversight Committee from the Epstein files in December last year

Gates told the foundation’s staff he met Epstein in 2011 – years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution – adding that he said he was aware of some “18-month thing” that had limited Epstein’s travel, but that he didn’t properly check his background, according to the report.

He continued to meet Epstein through 2014, and spent time with him abroad, he reportedly said, adding that he “never stayed overnight” or visited Epstein’s island.

The relationship continued even after his ex-wife expressed doubts, he is reported to have said, adding: “To give her credit, she was always kind of sceptical about the Epstein thing.”

Epstein told him he had links with other billionaires and suggested he could help raise money for charitable causes Gates was engaged with, the paper reported.

A spokesperson for the Gates Foundation said in a statement: “This was a scheduled town hall with employees, which Bill does twice a year.

“In the conversation, Bill answered questions submitted by foundation staff on a range of issues, including the release of the Epstein files, the foundation’s work in AI, and the future of global health.

“In the town hall, Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions.”

Gates established his philanthropic organisation alongside his then wife, Melinda French Gates. They divorced in 2021 after 27 years of marriage.

In an interview with an NPR podcast earlier this month she said the latest release of files dredged up “painful times in my marriage”.

“I am so happy to be away from all the muck,” she said, adding elsewhere in the interview: “Whatever questions remain there of what – I 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.”

US media have reported that before their separation Melinda had been upset about her husband’s association with Epstein. After their split was announced, Bill Gates acknowledged having had an affair with a Microsoft employee in 2019.

In his reported remarks to staff on Tuesday, Gates said he met the two women with whom he said he had affairs with through his own social and business activities.

New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services

Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges

It follows claims made in emails drafted by Epstein in July 2013, and contained in the files released in January, that Gates contracted a sexually transmitted infection and tried to hide it, including from his then-wife Melinda.

Gates’s spokesperson has previously called the claim “absolutely absurd and completely false”.

One draft email is written as a resignation letter from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and complains about having had to procure medicine for Gates “in order to deal with the consequences of sex with Russian girls”.

“While Mr Gates acknowledges that meeting with Epstein was a serious error in judgment, he unequivocally denies any improper conduct related to Epstein and the horrible activities in which Epstein was involved,” they said at the time.

Gates said in an interview with Australian outlet 9News in February that his interactions with Epstein were limited to dinners and that he regretted “every minute” he spent with him. “I apologise that I did that,” he said.

In separate statement shared previously in response to the latest batch of Epstein files, the Gates Foundation said “a small number of foundation employees interacted” with the late financier on the basis that he claimed to be able to “mobilise significant philanthropic resources”.

“Ultimately, the foundation did not pursue any collaboration with Epstein and no fund was ever created. At no time were financial payments made by the foundation to Epstein, nor was he employed by the foundation at any time,” it said.