In her first interview post their divorce announcement in May last year, Melinda French Gates opened up about her separation from Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates and how at one point she couldn’t trust what they had.

“It wasn’t one moment or one specific thing that happened,” Melinda Gates told journalist Gayle King about the break-up. “There just came a point in time where there was enough there that I realized it just wasn’t healthy, and I couldn’t trust what we had.” Representative of Bill Gates had confirmed earlier that he had been involved in a consensual affair with a Microsoft employee nearly 20 years ago.

Melinda further spoke about how heartbroken she was over the split and that there were days when she would just be laying on the floor. “Well, I think it’s really important to say, look, I had a lot of tears for many days. I mean, days where I’m literally laying on the floor and the carpet, you know, this close to me, thinking, ‘How can this be? How can I get up? How am I gonna move forward?’”

She also criticized Bill Gates for being friends with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier accused of child sex crimes who took his own life in 2019 while awaiting trial, and how it was also one of the many reasons that contributed towards their split. Describing Epstein as ‘abhorrent’ and ‘evil personified,’ Melinda disclosed that she had nightmares following her first and only meeting with Epstein.

“I wanted to see who this man was, and I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door. Any of the questions remaining about what Bill’s relationship there was, those are for Bill to answer, but I made it very clear how I felt about him,” she said. Bill Gates had admitted in August last year that it was a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein, but that his goal was to raise money for his foundation.

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.