A document obtained by People has revealed the details of Bill and Melinda Gates' divorce.
According to the publication, Melinda's petition for divorce was filed in King County, Washington,
and notes that the couple does not have a prenuptial agreement in place. Instead, the
pair plan to divide their assets as part of a separation agreement and Melinda has stated
that "spousal support is not needed."
In the petition for divorce, Melinda described her marriage to her husband Bill as "irretrievably
broken," adding,
"We ask the court to dissolve our marriage and find that our marital community ended
on the date stated in our separation contract."
On Monday, May 3rd, Melinda also filed an automatic temporary order that aims to set
financial restraints between the pair during their divorce, preventing the disposal of
property or changes to insurance policies. Melinda has a team of high-powered attorneys
to represent her through the divorce process, including Robert Cohen, who previously represented
Ivana Trump.
News of Bill and Melinda's split comes after 27 years of marriage. The now-former couple
first met back in 1987 when Melinda began working at Bill's company, Microsoft. They
eventually married in 1994 and went on to have three children together, Jennifer, Rory,
and Phoebe. Before getting married Bill made a pros and cons list on his office whiteboard.
He explained in a documentary series,
"You know, we cared a lot for each other and there were only two possibilities: either,
we were going to break up or we were going to get married.”
In a joint social media statement posted on May 3rd, Bill and Melinda revealed they had
"made the decision to end our marriage" after a "great deal of thought." News of their split
has shocked the world. Their respective tweets announcing their divorce have been retweeted
over 100,000 times. Both have blocked comments on their announcement tweet which strives
to reassure the world that their joint work on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will
continue. The statement 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.
We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the
foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in the next phase
of our lives."
The announcement concluded,
"We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life."
It's unclear how long problems in their relationship have been brewing. In 2018, Bill and Melinda
Gates' yearly joint letter suggested that the couple was still very much united. Melinda
wrote,
"For our wedding, Bill's parents gave us a sculpture of two birds side by side, staring
at the horizon, and it's still in front of our house. I think of it all the time, because
fundamentally we're looking in the same direction."
Also in 2018, Melinda spoke to Lin Manuel Miranda on Facebook Live, dishing on date
night topics of conversation and asserting that,
"Neither of us are afraid of a little bit of grist in the system, neither in business
nor in our marriage. That's how you actually grow.”
During the same interview, Bill affirmed that their relationship "works well."
But by 2019 something may have shifted. Melinda hinted at difficulties in their relationship,
describing her marriage to the billionaire entrepreneur as "incredibly hard".
She revealed,
"Believe me, I can remember some days that were so incredibly hard in our marriage where
you thought, 'Can I do this?'."
The same year, she confirmed to Business Insider that she'd sometimes been frustrated by "unbalanced"
responsibilities in her home.
As Bill Gates once reflected to The Seattle Times, there haven't been many marriages as
high-profile and influential as theirs was, except, per Gates "the Curies, Pierre and
Marie Curie." Now, when facing divorce, the world is left wondering what's going to become
of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a massive organization with a 50 billion dollar
endowment that employs 1,600 people across the globe. Both Bill and Melinda have made
efforts to assure both the public and organization staff that the foundation will continue to
operate as normal, but according to The New York Times, employees have expressed their
concern over the long-term impacts that the couple's divorce may have.
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