Melinda French Gates, who announced her separation from billionaire entrepreneur Bill Gates in May 2021 after nearly 30 years of marriage, has opened up about her ‘unbelievably painful’ divorce with her ex-husband in a recent interview with a magazine.

Claiming that she had some reasons she just could not stay in the marriage anymore, Melinda Gates said, “The odd thing about COVID is that it gave me the privacy to do what I needed to do. It’s unbelievably painful, in innumerable ways, but I had the privacy to get through it. I kept working with the person I was moving away from, and I needed to show up and be my best self every single day. So even though I might be crying at 9 am and then have to be on a video conference at 10 am with the person I’m leaving, I have to show up and be my best.”

Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, in a joint statement released in May last year, announced their decision to end their 27-year-old marriage. The couple, who got married in 1994 in Hawaii, had met after Melinda began working at Microsoft as a product manager in 1987. They have three children - Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe - together.