The split between Bill and Melinda Gates, announced last week, has been in the works for a long time.

Melinda Gates started consulting divorce lawyers in October 2019, according to a report – around the same time as her husband’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein was being called into question.

Melinda said in 2019 that her marriage was “irretrievably broken” and had been working with legal counsels ever since to prepare to dissolve it, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Last Monday, the couple announced their divorce with dual postings on Twitter.

Bill Gates had flown with Epstein on Epstein’s jet from New Jersey to Palm Beach, Florida, as far back as 2013 – 4 years after Epstein had served a prison sentence for soliciting a minor under the age of 18 for sex.

The Journal reported that Melinda had been concerned with her husband’s relationship with the pedophile since 2013.

Her fears apparently came to a head several years later: Melinda had been talking to New York divorce lawyer Robert Stephan Cohen since October 2019.

It was that same month that the New York Times said Bill Gates had met with Epstein multiple times, and once stayed late at his townhouse in New York.

Bill and Melinda had met Epstein in 2013, and Melinda reportedly told Bill that she found him creepy and did not think they should be associated with him.