Last week, we reported that Bill and Melinda Gates shocked the world when they announced that they are divorcing after 27 years of marriage. Since then, reports have come out stating that Melinda was not comfortable with the friendship Bill had with the late billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Now, new details are coming to light about the relationship the two men had.

“It was a business connection and had to do with fundraising,” a source told People Magazine of the relationship Bill and Epstein had. “There was a legitimate philanthropic side to this, and they had spoken about the Nobel Prize and what they could do to work towards that.”

“Melinda didn’t want him having anything to do with Epstein,” the insider added.

A former Gates Foundation staffer told the Daily Beast that the prize “is what Bill wants more than anything else in the world.”

This comes after we reported that Bill and Epstein met dozens of times at the latter’s New York City townhouse beginning in 2011 and lasting through 2014. The insider claimed that Bill’s visits to Epstein’s home were to escape his unhappy marriage, and that the two men “were very close.”

Bill allegedly told Epstein that his marriage was “toxic,” and both men found this funny. Melinda was reportedly “furious” about her husband’s relationship with Epstein after they both visited his townhouse in September of 2013. This meeting proved to be a turning point in Bill and Epstein’s relationship, as Melinda made it clear that she was uncomfortable around the sex offender and wanted nothing to do with him.

At the time that Bill and Epstein met, the latter had already spent a year in prison for soliciting child prostitution. Bill said through a spokeswoman in 2019 that he “regrets ever meeting with Epstein and recognizes it was an error in judgment to do so.”

Bill and Melinda shocked the world last week when they revealed that they are divorcing, as their marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

“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 in a statement. “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 this next phase of our lives,” their statement concluded. “We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.”