The Gist
Bill Gates opened up about his relationship with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee.
The Microsoft co-founder, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, named three women he had affairs with during his marriage to Melinda French.
He also claimed that Epstein learned about the infidelity and tried to “pressure” him to reconnect.
Bill Gates named three women he had affairs with during his marriage to Melinda French during a closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee about his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein. In a transcript for the voluntary interview, which was released on June 23, the Microsoft co-founder claimed that the late sex offender knew about his infidelity—and tried to “pressure” him to “reconnect” as he “contemplated” blackmail.
Bill Gates arrives for a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 10, 2026.
Credit: Getty Images
Gates, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing and has denied any “illicit” actions, spoke to the committee as part of an ongoing probe linked to the Justice Department’s Epstein Files release. During the interview, which was held on Capitol Hill on June 10, the businessman maintained that his three-year relationship with Epstein from 2011 to 2014 was strictly work-related. However, Gates alleged that the disgraced financier tried to reach out when he learned of his infidelity.
“It was after this that I learned Epstein had become aware of sensitive information about my personal life, including the fact that I had been unfaithful in my marriage. These affairs had nothing to do with my interactions with Epstein, but they were painful for my family,” Gates said during the interview.
Gates—who finalized his divorce from French in 2021 after 27 years of marriage—named bridge player Mila Antonova and nuclear scientist Karima Nigmatulina as the women he had extramarital affairs with. He also later identified doctor Alice Jacobs Nesselrodt, whom he met at a conference before 2010, when the committee revealed her redacted name was in the Epstein files.
Melinda Gates and Bill Gates speak on stage during The Robin Hood Foundation’s 2018 benefit at Jacob Javits Center on May 14, 2018 in New York City.
Credit: Getty Images
Gates revealed that he believes the employee who introduced him to Epstein was the one who told him about his affairs, sharing, “Epstein was working to use information about my infidelities, in addition to many lies that he layered on top, to pressure me to re-engage with him. He was unsuccessful in this effort, but it shows some of the ways he tried to leverage his interactions with me to further his agenda. I should never have met with Epstein in the first place.”
Bill Gates leaves after a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 10, 2026.
The 70-year-old clarified, “There was never an explicit, ‘Hey, if you don’t do something, I will reveal this.’ There was the veiled type of language, ‘Hey, should all want to be friends.’ And as I’ve said, I took that on very explicitly and said, ‘Look, if you think you’re going to get more money out of this, it’s not going to happen, and if that means you go out and talk to people about things, I will just bear the pain of that and deal with it.’”
Gates later added, “He never blackmailed me, but looking at these emails, it raises a serious probability that he contemplated blackmailing me.”
Read the original article on InStyle