Melinda French Gates Divorce With Bill Gates: Awful, Horrible Thing
Melinda French Gates recently opened up about her divorce from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
Speaking to TIME magazine, Ms Gates revealed she initially separated from him before ultimately deciding to proceed with the divorce in 2021.
Melinda Gates talked about being able to navigate this process privately, especially while balancing responsibilities like caring for their children. In her words, "To be able to do that in private while I'm still trying to take care of the kids, while still making certain decisions about how you're going to disentangle your life - thank God."
Melinda French Gates described her divorce as an "awful" and "horrible thing". However, "it has been wonderful" since then, she said. "I live in a neighbourhood. Now, I can walk to little stores. I can walk to the drugstore, I can walk to a restaurant," adding that she "absolutely loves it".
The divorce, finalised in August 2021 after 27 years of marriage, led her to step away from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, an organisation synonymous with global impact and philanthropy.
"I thought a lot about my three children. But I certainly thought about the effect on the foundation. Those are the three biggest buckets: me, the kids, and the foundation. And I wanted to make sure that when we came through it to the other side - all of those pieces were intact," Melinda French Gates shared during the interview.