Billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates says his friendship with disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was a “mistake.”
“I made a mistake ever meeting with Jeffrey Epstein,” Gates told BBC’s Mishal Husain in a wide-ranging interview on the Today program.
In March, Melinda Gates said she questioned why Bill Gates had held meetings with Epstein, telling CBS, “I did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no. I made that clear to him.”
“You know, maybe her [Melinda’s] instincts on that were keener than mine,” Gates told BBC. “Any meeting I had with him could be viewed as almost condoning his evil behavior. So, that was a mistake.”
This is not the first time the Microsoft founder has described having met with Epstein as a “mistake.”
Last year, Gates told CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 program that it was a “huge mistake” to meet with the convicted sex offender.
“I had several dinners with him, hoping what he said about getting billions in philanthropy for global health through contacts that he had might emerge and when it looked like that wasn’t a real thing, that relationship ended,” Gates explained.
“It was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility of being there,” he added. “There were lots of others in that same situation, but I made a mistake.”
In September, Gates said, “Well, he’s dead,” after being asked by PBS’s NewsHour if there was any “lesson” he learned from his previously admitted “mistake” with Epstein.
“I had dinners with him. I regret doing that,” Gates said, reiterating his previous statements on the matter. “Those meetings were a mistake.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.