Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates They announced their plans to divorce in May 2021, which came as a shock to many after 27 years of marriage.
“After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” they said. Shared in a statement On May 3, they added that they “no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives.”
The couple met in 1987 when Melinda started working at Microsoft, the company founded by Bill. After the romance got serious, Bill made a pro and con list to see if he should (really) propose, and they decided to start a life together. Bill and Melinda married in 1994, the same year they launched the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The two welcomed their daughter Jennifer in 1996, their son Rory in 1999 and their daughter Phoebe in 2002.
“Working together and raising a family together, there’s a certain power in that,” Bell said in a 2019 Facebook Live. “But we're very lucky because we mostly see things the same way, and the goals are pretty much the same.”
Scroll for the full timeline of Bill and Melinda's romance:
