The ink is dry on Bill and Melinda Gates‘ divorce papers. But that doesn’t mean the iconic business leader has left it all in the past. In a new interview, he claimed “regret” following his split from Melinda after 27 years of marriage. “The divorce thing was miserable for me and Melinda for at least two years,” he told The Times of London for an interview published on January 25. “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.”
While admitting he’s “more cheerful now,” he also called the epic split “the mistake I regret the most.” Still, that hasn’t stopped Bill, 69, from moving forward — he’s frequently seen with Paula Heard, who was married to the late Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, who died in 2019.
Below, here’s everything we know about Bill Gates’ girlfriend and his split from Melinda.
Does Bill Gates Have a Girlfriend?
According to PEOPLE, Bill and Paula confirmed their relationship in February of 2023 — though the couple had been seen together as early as September of 2022, when they attended the Laver Cup. The philanthropist and mom of two was previously married to Mark Hurd for 30 years before he passed away after an unspecified illness. Per PEOPLE, when the couple confirmed their budding romance in April of 2023, an insider said the relationship was “widely known.” In August of 2023, they upped the ante by attending the lavish engagement party of Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos.
Who is Bill Gates’ Ex-Wife?
Bill was previously married to Melinda Gates, 60, for 27 years before they announced their split in May of 2021. Bill and the former Melinda French met at Microsoft in 1987, where she worked as a product manager, and married in Hawaii in 1994. “After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” Bill wrote in a surprise Tweet at the time.
“Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all to lead healthy, productive lives. We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the [Gates] foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in the next phase of our lives.”
In addition to welcoming three children, the duo formed the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, which Melinda resigned from in 2024, following their divorce. In 2019, she published her book The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. The former couple finalized their divorce in August of 2021.
Why Did Bill and Melinda Gates Divorce?
In 2022, Melinda sat down with CBS Mornings and admitted that there “wasn’t one moment or one specific thing that happened” that led to their divorce. “There just came a point in time where there was enough there that I realized it just wasn’t healthy, and I couldn’t trust what we had,” she explained.
She also addressed her ex-husband’s affair with a staffer two decades ago — an indiscretion Bill admitted to in May of 2021, per PEOPLE. “I certainly believe in forgiveness, so I thought we had worked through some of that,” Melinda told CBS Mornings.
