
Despite a lifetime of monumental success, Bill Gates is reflecting on some of the things in life he regrets, including his divorce from Melinda Gates after two decades of marriage, and his association with late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Some would argue that a man with a net worth over $100 billion would be pretty well satisfied with his life, but Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has some pretty big regrets.
The tech visionary opened up about some of those regrets recently, calling his divorce from ex-wife Melinda French Gates "the mistake I most regret."
Among the reasons she's since cited for her decision to go through with divorcing Gates after 27 years of marriage, French has cited his association with the late convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with Gates subsequently admitting he was "quite stupid" for it.
Divorce Regrets
Talking with The Times of London over the weekend, the 69-year-old Gates said that he'd always wanted to mirror the 45-year marriage he witnessed his parents enjoy in his own life. But things didn't work out that way, with Gates and French finalizing their divorce on August 2, 2021, after 27 years of marriage.
"There is a certain wonderfulness to spending your entire adult life with one person because of the memories and depth of things you have done and having kids together," Gates told the newspaper.

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View Story"When Melinda and I met, I was fairly successful but not ridiculously successful -- that came during the time that we were together," he added. "So, she saw me through a lot."
He acknowledged, though, that their strong personalities could lead to tension, as well as great times. "I encouraged Melinda to be a little calmer than my mother was, but we were both quite driven," he shared. "I spent more time with the kids than my dad did, but the ratio was still 10:1, with Melinda doing most things for the kids."
All in all, though, Gates said that he and his ex-wife "had a great time" together. Unfortunately, it wouldn't last, with the tech billionaire putting the dissolution of their marriage "at the top of the list," when referring to his adult failures.
"There are others but none that matter," he explained. "The divorce thing was miserable for me and Melinda for at least two years."
He said that things have since reached a place of amicability, as the former couple focuses on co-parenting their adult children. "We have three kids and two grandchildren so there are family events," he told The Times. "The kids are doing well. They have good values."

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View StoryEpstein Regrets
Gates also weighed in on his past association with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who committed suicide in August 2019 after he was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking minors.
Gates had met with Epstein as the latter had proposed plans to raise money for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but that never came to pass. French, though, was never on board with working with Epstein, once calling him "evil personified."
While Gates' association with Epstein began before he was arrested in July 2019 on federal charges for allegedly sex trafficking minors, it was after he pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 2008 for procuring a child for prostitution after feds had found 36 total alleged victims, some as young as 14.
"I did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no. I made that clear to him," she said on CBS Mornings in March 2022, as covered by TMZ at the time, saying that though there were "many things" that helped her decide to end her marriage, Gates' association with Epstein was one of them.
French said she met Epstein once because she "wanted to see who" he was. "I regretted it the second I walked in the door," she said. "He was abhorrent. He was evil personified. My heart breaks for these women."

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With the benefit of hindsight, Gates agrees with his ex-wife now, telling The Wall Street Journal in an interview published January 24, "I think I was quite stupid."
"In retrospect, I was foolish to spend any time with him. And he, sort of, got time with various people by spending time with other people," Gates added. "So yes, I think I was quite stupid. I thought it would help me with global health philanthropy. In fact, it failed to do that it was just a huge mistake."
Instead, after dealing with the tremendous public backlash for the association, Gates said he's more wary of making new connections. "Definitely," he said. "I mean, are you kidding?"
Gates has expressed these sentiments of regret before, including on Anderson Cooper 360 in 2021. "It was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility of being there. There were lots of others in that situation, but I made a mistake," he admitted.
"I had several dinners with him hoping that what he said about getting billions of philanthropy for global health through contacts that he had might emerge. When it looked like that wasn't a real thing, that relationship ended."