But it's fair to say that in the sprawling, Pacific lodge-style home of Melinda and Bill Gates, the complexity was particularly acute. The foundation the couple co-led had been running a flu study in their hometown of Seattle, which had detected early cases of COVID-19 in the region. There were video calls with infectious-disease specialists they funded, world leaders, epidemiologists, journalists, and public-health officials.
Two of their three children were home from school full time. Plus, the couple was secretly separated, trading off who lived at the family house and who was elsewhere while they tried to figure out if they could stay married.
"It was a super intense time for us as a foundation," says Melinda French Gates, sitting in her industrial-chic office in Kirkland, Wash., three days after exiting the world-changing organization that bore her name for almost 25 years. "The other thing I would say, though, is, unusually, it gave us the privacy to do what needed to be done in private. You know, I separated first before I made the full decision about a divorce. And to be able to do that in private while I'm still trying to take care of the kids, while still making certain decisions about how you're going to disentangle your life-thank God." Most divorces are not undertaken lightly. They can blow a hole in a couple's finances and health, the happiness of their children, and each partner's self-esteem. French Gates didn't have to worry so much about that first issue. But unlike others, she did have to think about the effect her divorce, finalized two weeks before her 57th birthday in August 2021, might have on the world. It's not an exaggeration to say that if the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation were damaged by the collapse of the Bill and Melinda Gates marriage, it could affect the welfare of millions of people around the globe.
Denne historien er fra July 15, 2024-utgaven av Time.
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Denne historien er fra July 15, 2024-utgaven av Time.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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CAVALCADE OF COMEDY
As Saturday Night Live celebrates its 50th season, alumni look back on the people, moments, and humor that shaped their time at an American institution
The Summer of Scam that never ended
EARLY IN THE NEW NETFLIX SERIES APPLE CIDER VINEgar, its star, Kaitlyn Dever, breaks the fourth wall.
The Italian 'Trump whisperer'
ITALIAN PRIME MINister Giorgia Meloni's political fortunes are far brighter than any other G-7 leader's.
The (real) problem with fake plants
WHEN THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHER IMMANUEL KANT puzzled over why nature looks beautiful to us, he considered the case of replicas.
Insecurity is the new inequality
DONALD TRUMP'S SECOND PRESIDENTIAL TERM HAS already been accompanied by a cascade of unnerving political and natural events-from the U.S.'s leaving the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords, to the nighttime firings of inspectors general and pardons of the Jan. 6 rioters, to the raids targeting immigrants in a number of cities and the wildfires roaring through swaths of Los Angeles.
TIME the Closers
25 BLACK LEADERS WORKING TO END RACIAL INEQUALITY
THE PAW PATROL PRINCIPLE
How a toy company built a children's-television juggernaut
Mindy Kaling The writer, producer, and showrunner on the status of Legally Blonde 3, cooking with Meghan Markle, and her new Netflix comedy, Running Point
The family in Running Point has shades of Succession. Was that show on your mind?
A THOUSAND CUTS
THE STANDOFF AT 1300 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE was not much of a spectacle.
DeepSeek's hidden warning for AI safety
THE RELEASE OF DEEPSEEK R1 STUNNED WALL STREET and Silicon Valley in January, spooking investors and impressing tech leaders.
