The files included an email Epstein wrote to himself about Gates in which he said he'd helped the tech magnate find drugs to "to deal with consequences of sex with russian girls." In another email addressed to Gates but sent to himself, Epstein claimed Gates had "implored" him to delete emails in which Gates discussed his sexually transmitted disease and requested that Epstein provide him with "antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda." Epstein sent both emails to himself on July 18, 2013. It was unclear whether Gates had received or read them.
A Bluesky post that included a video interview with French Gates claimed that she confirmed her divorce stemmed from allegations referenced in the Epstein files:
In an interview with NPR, Melinda French Gates confirmed that she ended her marriage with Bill Gates because of allegations contained in the Epstein files.
[image or embed]— Jerad Walker (@jeradwalker.bsky.social) February 3, 2026 at 11:38 AM
A similar claim spread on Reddit and X, alongside a clip from another interview with French Gates.
The video interviews were authentic, and French Gates suggested in both conversations that her ex-husband's friendship with Epstein played a role in her decision to end their marriage. However, she did not explicitly confirm any of the details outlined in the emails Epstein sent to himself. For this reason, we left the claim unrated.
Separately, The New York Times reported a representative for Gates said Epstein's claims about him were "false." Gates then told Australian news outlet 9News he had been "foolish" to maintain a friendship with Epstein.
What French Gates said in the interviews
At one point in the interview, Martin allowed French Gates to respond to her ex-husband being named in the Epstein files. In response, French Gates neither explicitly confirmed nor disputed the details in Epstein's emails. She said, in part:
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.
When Martin followed up by outlining the allegations that Gates had extramarital sexual relations and intended to give this then-wife medicine without her knowledge to treat a sexually transmitted infection, French Gates nodded slightly. Asked for her response, she said:
Sad. Just unbelievable sadness. Unbelievable sadness. Right? … And again, I'm able to take my own sadness and look at those young girls and say, "My god, how did they— how did that happen to those girls?" Right? And so for me, it's just sadness. Sadness for, you know … I've left I had to … I left my marriage. I had to leave my marriage.
The second clip shared online came from an interview recorded in 2022 for "CBS Mornings" with Gayle King. French Gates was speaking a year after her divorce from Gates.
In that interview, French Gates suggested her ex-husband's friendship with Epstein played a role in the divorce:
FRENCH GATES: I did not like that he'd had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no.
KING: And you made that clear to him [Gates]?
FRENCH GATES: I made that clear to him. I also met Jeffrey Epstein exactly one time.
KING: Did you?
FRENCH GATES: Yes, because I wanted to see who this man was and I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door. He was abhorrent, he was evil personified. I had nightmares about it afterwards.
For further reading, Snopes investigated Epstein's allegations against Gates.