“He cared so much about my looks and it was not ok”: Melinda Gates opens up on a toxic romance

Melinda French Gates talked about getting into a toxic relationship that left a lasting impact on her psyche, in college. Bill Gates’s former wife in a new interview admitted that it wasn’t a positive relationship for her and it took several years to get over the impact of her college romance.

Melinda said her boyfriend who she met at the Duke University commented a lot on her looks which affected her body image and confidence, so much so that she felt its impact throughout her twenties and thirties.

“[It] was really not a positive relationship for me at all,” she said in Monday’s episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show.

“He cared a lot about how I looked and said a lot of things about it to me, and that really is not OK.

It really is not.”

By the time Gates got out of the relationship, she said, she had already “inculcated too many of those messages.”

“I would say that carried through with me into my 20s and even into my 30s,” she said. “And it wasn’t, probably, until I got to 40 that I got more OK with who I was.”

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At 60, Gates is clear about her fitness goals.

“I want to be fit because I wanna be able to do all the things I want,” she said. “I want to be healthy, but I’m not so focused on, you know, am I X weight or Y weight or do I fit in that size pants or another?”

However, she admitted that her body image issues are “still there in the back of my head a little bit, but it just isn’t a big call any more.”

Gates said she overcame her body image issues by consulting “several different nutritionists” and a therapist to understand the ‘anxiety’ around her body better.

She said that when you release yourself from a sense of “perfectionism around weight and body image,” you have so much more mind space and peace.

What inspired her more to work on her body image issues, was also the well-being of her daughters – Jennifer, 28, and Phoebe, 22.

The doting mother wanted to teach them the importance of self-love.

“I also got to a point where I realized that I was role modeling for my daughters,” she said. “It was really important that I work on this in myself so I didn’t put any of that on them and so when they had body issues, they could come to me and I could be honest with them.”

Gates said her work also helped heal her relationship with her body.

“Data shows that if women are working and doing meaningful work, they focus less on body image,” she shared, “which, again, how beautiful is it to be able to put that energy and that time into things that you care about doing for the world?”

“When you’re leaving a marriage, it’s very, very hard.

And the negotiations were tough,” she said, reflecting on her divorce with Gates. Talking to NBC, Mr. Gates said, “The divorce wasn’t great. Having those three kids, the work we were able to do together – even if I knew that it wouldn’t last forever, I would still do it again,” the Microsoft co-founder replied.

Following her graduation, Melinda embarked on her professional journey and eventually crossed paths with Bill Gates, her future husband, in the year 1987 during a Microsoft sales conference.

At that time, Melinda had taken on the role of a product manager at Microsoft, while Bill held the position of CEO of the company. The couple tied the knot in 1994, marking the beginning of their partnership.

They parted ways in 2021 after 27 years of marriage and the co-founder of Microsoft in a recent interview described it as the ‘biggest regret’ of his life. Melinda however felt that the split was necessary. She admits that separation from Gates wasn’t easy and the negotiations were tough too.

Melinda in her upcoming memoir The Next Day has talked in detail about her decision to separate with Bill Gates and navigating through other significant transitions in her life. The former couple share three children all of who are adults now – Jennifer, 28, Rory, 25, and Phoebe, 22.

In a recent interview with PEOPLE, Melinda opened up about her journey of moving forward, marking four years since her high-profile separation from Bill Gates.

While she chose not to disclose the name of her current romantic partner, Melinda expressed that she feels very, very happy in her new relationship. It is speculated that she is dating Philip Vaughn, a tech entrepreneur who is also the founder of Tavour, a popular craft beer delivery service. The two were recently seen enjoying each other’s company while holding hands during a stroll in New York City. Notably, Vaughn has a significant background in technology, having spent nearly nine years working at Microsoft.