Philanthropist and author Melinda French Gates has finally shared more personal insight into her decision to end her 27-year marriage to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
During a candid interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Melinda spoke openly about the challenges that led to the dissolution of one of the world’s most talked-about marriages. At the heart of it, she said, was a fundamental issue: honesty.
“I learned to have a trusted relationship, which is what I wanted in marriage, both partners have to be honest with one another,”
— Melinda explained.
The 60-year-old philanthropist made it clear that without honesty, deeper emotional bonds like intimacy and trust become impossible to maintain.
“And if you can’t, you can’t have intimacy and you can’t have trust. So in the end, I had to go,”
— she added.
Melinda officially divorced Bill Gates in 2021, ending a union that spanned nearly three decades. The couple, who have three children together, had long been admired not just for their marriage but for their joint philanthropic efforts through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Recently, Melinda has stepped back into the public eye as she promotes her upcoming memoir. The book offers a reflective look at her life’s transitions—including the highly publicized divorce—and the personal growth that followed.
