Nearly four years after Bill Gates announced his intent to divorce his longtime wife Melinda, the Microsoft co-founder said he now considers the decision to be one of the worst he has ever made.
“That was the mistake I most regret,” Gates, 69, told The Times in an interview that was published on Saturday, Jan. 25.
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Over the course of his conversation with the British paper, the billionaire said his marriage “kept me grounded” when he was younger and that he tried to recreate the kind of happy family setting that he enjoyed as a child.
“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,” he said.
The Gates revealed their plans to end their 27-year marriage in a statement on May 3, 2021. They arrived at their decision following “a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship,” the pair said.
“Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives,” their statement said. Though they initially planned to continue working together at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which they launched together in 2000, Melinda opted to resign from her co-chair role in May 2024.
Gates, who is preparing to release his new memoir Source Code in February, said while looking back on his divorce that the experience was “tough” and that he was also “disappointed” when Melinda left the foundation. When asked about his life’s “failures,” Gates told The Times that his divorce was “at the top of the list.”
“There are others but none that matter,” he said. “The divorce thing was miserable for me and Melinda for at least two years.”
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