According to people knowledgeable with the situation, Melinda Gates met with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in New York City alongside her partner, Bill, and soon after expressed her displeasure with the two men’s friendship.

After an unsettling encounter with imprisoned sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein in 2013, Melinda Gates warned her husband Bill to avoid any more interaction with him.

According to a story in The Daily Beast, the pair met with Epstein at his Upper East Side mansion in September 2013.

Melinda demanded that she have nothing more to do with the alleged pedophile after the encounter between Bill Gates and Epstein annoyed her. According to the Daily Beast, while sources suggested the meeting would “prove a turning point for Gates’ relationship with Epstein,” there is no evidence of this. Melinda  hasn’t spoken up about her problems with Epstein or potential involvement in the divorce.

The previously undisclosed meeting took place on the same day that the pair received the Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award at The Pierre hotel and were pictured with then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

When Epstein pitched a fund to the Gates Foundation and JP Morgan in 2011, the two became friends. Gates isn’t believed to have invested in it, and he’s said in the past that he’s never done business with Epstein, but the two interacted on several more occasions.

Epstein had previously served a year in jail for soliciting underage sex before they met, but he was accepted back into New York culture.

According to the New York Times, Mr. Gates sent an email to coworkers in 2011 in which he said, “His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing, although it would not work for me.”

Mr Gates’ spokesman, Bridgitt Arnold, assured the newspaper that he was “only referring to the Epstein residence’s unique décor – and Epstein’s habit of bringing acquaintances in to meet Mr Gates.”

She said, “It was in no way meant to convey a sense of interest or approval.”

According to The Beast, her husband’s “friendship with Epstein… still haunts Melinda.” Although it’s uncertain if her distaste for Epstein was a consideration in her decision to divorce him, a slew of publicists and financiers have allegedly been enlisted to finalize the divorce deal, which is expected to be the biggest in US history considering the couple’s enormous wealth.

According to friends of the couple who talked to The Daily Beast this week in light of the couple’s weeks-long divorce declaration, Gates’ relationship with Epstein—who for years was suspected of molesting dozens of underage girls—still haunts Melinda.

Gates’ links to Epstein were far stronger than the software billionaire first acknowledged. According to The New York Times, Gates met with Epstein many times beginning in 2011. This came three years after Epstein pled guilty in Florida to soliciting an underage girl; at that time, allegations that Epstein abused girls and young people had been highly publicized.

According to the New York Times, two individuals close to Gates behaved as go-betweens: Boris Nikolic, a pharmaceutical businessman and former Gates advisor who was mysteriously appointed a backup executor in Epstein’s last will and testament; and Melanie Walker, a Gates Foundation employee who served as Epstein’s research adviser. According to a source close to Walker, she did not attend or assist in the planning of any meetings between Gates and Epstein. Multiple calls for comment from Nikolic went unanswered.

Melinda didn’t say whether she was concerned about Epstein’s previous prosecution or just despised him.

One unidentified person who worked in tech with Gates and was also around Epstein assured The Daily Beast that he had his suspicions, unlike Gates, who maintains he never noticed anything suspicious going on in his house.

‘I can’t make the claim that so many are claiming. If you ask Bill Gates, he’ll say, “Oh I had absolutely no idea he wasn’t up to anything of the highest moral character.”

‘But I seriously doubted Epstein’s moral character.

‘The people around him had a varying spectrum of what they knew and what they didn’t know and how they rationalized it.’

He went on to say that Melinda may have been turned off by Epstein’s bravado and the way that he regularly name-dropped, and that others had been turned off by it before knowing about his sexual proclivities.

‘A a lot of people were uncomfortable with Epstein, completely independent of his [sexual misconduct].

‘He just was an obnoxious guy. He almost made a point of having bad manners, not paying attention at dinner… I could see how anybody, even without suspicions, would not want to be around him.’

Epstein was indicted on federal human abuse charges in 2019 and died in a Manhattan prison cell while pending trial. The death was considered a suicide by the medical examiner.

Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime friend, was detained on human slavery charges in 2020. Prosecutors claim she arranged for Epstein to sexually harass underage girls. Ms. Maxwell, who is being detained in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, disputes any misconduct.

Her trial was delayed from July to early fall this week, but no new date has been set.

It’s unclear why Melinda Gates chose this specific time to leave her obscenely wealthy partner.

However, Bill and Melinda Gates plan to continue operating together, possibly on their other vaccine-related projects around the world.

After a 27-year union, the couple declared their separation. In what seemed to be a harmonious working partnership, it became apparent that despite the “great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship” that they both posted in tandem, their efforts were insufficient to preserve it.