Bill Gates admitted to two affairs with Russian women during his marriage as he apologized to staff at the Gates Foundation for his association with Jeffrey Epstein.
According to the Wall Street Journal, The billionaire Microsoft co-founder spoke to staffers during a town hall call on Tuesday, February 24, after appearing in Epstein emails released by the Justice Department in January.
In one email, dated July 2013 and written by Epstein about Gates, the late pedophile alleges the billionaire sought to conceal from his wife Melinda French Gates a sexually transmitted disease he contracted after having sex with “Russian girls,” Media ITE reported.
The email claims Gates sought antibiotics to secretly give her. It is not clear whether the email was sent to Gates, but he denied the allegation as “completely false” via a spokesperson in late January.
In his call on Tuesday, however, Gates confirmed he had extramarital relationships during his 27-year marriage with two Russian women.
“I did have affairs, one with a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events, and one with a Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities,” he said.
During the call, Gates acknowledged flying on a private plane with Epstein and spending time with him in the US and abroad, but insisted that he had not witnessed or participated in illegal activity.
“I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” Gates reportedly told staff. “To be clear, I never spent any time with the victims, the women around him.”
Gates said he first met Epstein in 2011, after the financier’s Florida conviction for procuring a child for prostitution, and continued to socialize with him despite concerns raised by his then-wife.
“To give her credit, she was always kind of skeptical about the Epstein thing,” he said.
Gates went on to apologize to staffers for the damage his relationship with Epstein caused to the foundation.
