The world’s sixth richest man Bill Gates has been grilled about his connection to billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in an awkward live-TV interview while visiting Australia.
The philanthropist, who has given billions to charity, is in the country talking about global issues such climate change and artificial intelligence.
Appearing on the ABC’s 7.30 on Monday night, host Sarah Ferguson put it to Gates: ‘One of issues that has dogged you is your relationship to Epstein.’
‘Do you regret the relationship that you maintained with him against (ex-wife) Melinda’s advice and wishes?’ she asked.
A somewhat taken aback Gates replied: ‘You’re going way back… but I will say for the over a hundredth time that, yeah, I shouldn’t have had dinners with him.’
According to the New York Times, Gates met with Epstein on numerous occasions from 2011.
Three years earlier Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage girl in Florida and accusations he exploited dozens more girls and young women were by then widely reported in the press.
In September 2013, Bill and his then wife Melinda Gates met with Epstein at his Upper East Side mansion in New York and she immediately disliked him, reported The Daily Beast.
She then told friends that he made her uncomfortable and warned her husband to stay away from him.
On Monday night’s interview, Ferguson continued to push the topic, saying: ‘Epstein had a way of sexually compromising people is that what Melinda was warning you about?’
‘No. I had dinner with him and that’s all,’ Gates replied.
‘And that you regret the acquittance?’
‘That I had dinner with him, yes.’
Ferguson then asked if he regretted any link between Epstein and his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – the vehicle through which he carries out his philanthropic efforts.
‘There never was any relationship of any kind,’ he responded.
The pair’s meetings seem to have fizzled by 2014, with the New York Times noting the financier had complained to friends by that point that Gates had stopped speaking to him.
Epstein was later arrested in July 2019 on US federal charges of sex trafficking minors in Florida and New York but committed suicide in his cell a month later before the case could go before a court.
Epstein was reportedly brought into the software mogul’s orbit by mutual friend Dr. Melanie S. Walker.
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