Did Bill Gates Really Have An Affair?

There's been a whole lot of speculation surrounding Bill Gates and Melinda Gates ever since the duo announced their divorce. The parents of three confirmed they would be going their separate ways after 27 years of marriage in a joint statement on Bill's Twitter on May 3, in which they claimed they "no longer believe [they] can grow together as a couple in the next phase of [their] lives."

The two don't appear to have shed any more light on what caused their breakup since, though there's been plenty of gossip about what really went wrong between the couple who once seemed so strong. Speculation was rife after TMZ claimed things were far from amicable between Bill and Melinda with a source even claiming Bill's family were "furious" and "very angry" with him. Though the insider didn't reveal exactly why, they stated there were supposedly "various things" the family believed he'd done that had upset them and claimed they'd taken Melinda's "side" in the split.

Eyebrows were also raised after Daily Mail reported Bill supposedly "spent long weekends at the beach alone" with his former girlfriend and business partner, Ann Winblad in what the outlet described as "a bizarre decades-long arrangement with his wife."

Now, more shocking allegations have come out in the wake of the split that appears to have turned nasty. Keep scrolling for the latest twist in the Gates divorce saga.

Bill Gates allegedly had an affair with an employee at Microsoft, according to a bombshell report from The Wall Street Journal. The outlet claimed the relationship came to light after an engineer wrote a letter in 2019 confessing the affair. Some board members were supposedly concerned about the allegation and thought Bill should relinquish his position as board director, though he was re-elected. However, Bill resigned in March 2020 before the investigation into the claims could be completed, reportedly claiming he wanted to focus more on his charity work.

A Microsoft spokesman said, "Microsoft received a concern in the latter half of 2019 that Bill Gates sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in the year 2000. A committee of the Board reviewed the concern, aided by an outside law firm to conduct a thorough investigation. Throughout the investigation, Microsoft provided extensive support to the employee who raised the concern."

Bill's spokesperson confirmed "there was an affair almost 20 years ago" and claimed it "ended amicably." They also denied Bill stepped down from the board because of the affair and said he'd "expressed an interest in spending more time on his philanthropy starting several years earlier."

The unnamed person supposedly asked for Bill's wife, Melinda Gates, to read her letter, though it's not clear if Melinda did or how much she knew about her husband's supposed behavior. It's also not known if the allegations influenced the now former couple's 2021 divorce announcement.

The affair allegations hit the headlines the same day as Bill Gates was also accused of questionable behavior towards other women who worked at Microsoft and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A May 16 report from The New York Times alleged that, while married to Melinda Gates, Bill had supposedly "pursued" women in the workplace.

Two people who claimed to be familiar with one particular exchange alleged that Bill emailed an unnamed woman and asked her out to dinner. He purportedly told her in the message, "If this makes you uncomfortable, pretend it never happened," with the woman said to have taken that option as she pretended she never received the offer.

Another woman told her story to the outlet and claimed that Bill had supposedly asked her out to dinner while on a work trip in New York. The woman said that she felt uncomfortable with the proposition and laughed instead of answering his request.

The New York Times noted that some of the employees who spoke out did not perceive Bill's alleged behavior as being predatory.

Though Bill Gates and Melinda Gates' divorce may have come as a surprise to many, it's been reported that their split has been a long time coming. It's not clear how much Melinda knew about the latest bombshells made public, though The Wall Street Journal claimed on May 9 that the divorce had been in the works for a while — so long that Melinda had supposedly been meeting with divorce lawyers since 2019.

Citing sources and divorce documents, the outlet claimed that Melinda set the ball rolling on their split at least 18 months before they made the news public via their Twitter statement. An insider alleged that Melinda was said to be particularly concerned by Bill's "dealings" with the disgraced businessman Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in August 2019 (per The New York Times). In November 2019, Bill claimed he "made a mistake in judgment" by meeting with Epstein about his global health campaign (per New York Post) and Bill also told The Wall Street Journal, "I didn't have any business relationship or friendship with him."

Whatever happens in the split that's seemingly getting messier by the day, we're just hoping Bill and Melinda can at least keep things civil for the sake of their children.