(Trends Wide) — Microsoft founder Bill Gates said he “shouldn’t have shared dinners” with Jeffrey Epstein, when speaking in an interview with the Australian chain ABC 7.30.
Gates and Epstein, the powerful financier who was accused of child sex trafficking and who died in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial, apparently after committing suicide, met numerous times beginning in 2011, according to a newspaper report. The New York Times. Gates had told Trends Wide that she had had dinners with him for possible philanthropic opportunities.
Epstein pleaded guilty to two state prostitution charges and was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2008, well before Gates’ meetings with him.
Host Sarah Ferguson questioned Gates, asking him if he “regrets the relationship he had” with Epstein, against the advice of his ex-wife Melinda Gates.
“You’re going way back in time,” he replied, adding that he had said this “more than 100 times.”
“I shouldn’t have shared dinners with him,” Gates responded.
Ferguson asked if Melinda had warned Gates about Epstein’s “way of sexually compromising people.”
“No,” Gates said, repeating that he regrets “having had dinner with him.” He also denied that there was any relationship of any kind between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Epstein.
Gates made similar comments to Trends Wide in August 2021.
“It was a big mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility of being there,” Gates told Anderson Cooper.
Gates said in the Trends Wide interview that he met with Epstein to raise more money to address global health issues.
“I had several dinners with him, you know, hoping that it would come up with what he said about raising billions in global health philanthropy through the connections he had,” Gates said. “When it seemed like it wasn’t something real, that relationship ended.”
Federal prosecutors in New York unsealed a criminal indictment against Epstein in July 2019, alleging the wealthy financial manager of operating a sex trafficking ring in which he sexually abused dozens of underage girls. These accusations had followed Epstein for years.
Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell in August 2019. The New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said his cause of death was suicide by hanging.
Gates made statements similar to The Wall Street Journal, when he reported that his social connection to Epstein played a role in his divorce from Melinda French Gates.
“It’s a time for reflection, and at this point, I need to move on,” Gates told Trends Wide in 2021. “Within the family, we’ll heal as best we can.”
Trends Wide’s Andy Rose contributed to this story.
