Bill Gates has said he 'regrets' ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein, as his former wife Melinda French Gates alluded to 'muck' in their marriage and insisted the Microsoft founder has questions to answer over his relationship with the deceased child sex offender.
Allegations that Gates hid a sexually transmitted disease from his wife after contact with 'Russian girls' surfaced in the latest release of the Epstein files. His office immediately issued a statement denouncing the assertion as 'absolutely absurd and completely false'. Gates finally spoke on Wednesday on Australian television channel 9News to deny the claim, suggesting Epstein was trying to extort or defame him by writing an email in 2013 that further alleged he subsequently tried to give antibiotics to Melinda surreptitiously.
'Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent. The email is false,' Gates said. 'I don't know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way? Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologise that I did that.'
His interview followed comments made by his ex-wife to NPR on Tuesday, in which she made clear her disapproval of his friendship with Epstein. 'For me, it's personally hard whenever those details come up, right? Because it brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage,' French Gates told the radio network's Wild Card podcast. '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.'
Gates told 9News he met Epstein in 2011 and had dinner with him on several occasions to discuss investing in proposed scientific ventures. He insisted he never went to Epstein's private Caribbean island and did not have any relations with any women. '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,' Gates said. 'I was foolish to spend time with him. I was one of many people who regret ever knowing him.'
French Gates, speaking of Epstein's numerous victims, said: 'No girl should ever be put in the situation they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him. It's beyond heartbreaking.' She said she had 'moved on' from a marriage she said she had to get away from, and was now 'in a really unexpected, beautiful place in my life. I'm so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.'
