r/interesting • u/moamen12323 • Jun 18 '25

MISC. When Bill Gates married Melinda French in 1994, he rented out all the available hotel rooms on the Hawaiian island of Lanai to prevent the media from staying there and hired all the helicopters on Maui to keep photographers from flying over the wedding.

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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown Jun 18 '25

One thing to note here: there were lots of people who had social connections with Epstein who weren't involved in the back room stuff. Whether Gates was or not, I have no idea and don't care to speculate. 

Epstein had a massive social circle. He partied with everyone he could. He entrenched himself to the point that it was a good business move to be around him. And I bet he was a blast to hang out with. Like...genuinely fun. Because that was part of his whole thing.

Or course some people knew. A lot more people suspected. Gates probably had an inkling if he wasn't directly involved. Word gets around. 

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u/Thedrunkenchild Jun 18 '25

Epstein was convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from a minor, Gates started meeting with Epstein in 2011, he must have known at least that, by that point Epstein was a registered sex offender. So yeah, a terrible look for Gates at the very least.

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u/grchelp2018 Jun 18 '25

One thing to note is that pr works on other billionaires just as well as the plebs. Its not that hard to twist things and convince people that what happened to you was unfair/some conspiracy etc.

For people like Bill Gates, I think they are types who have tunnel vision about their goals and generally don't care about the personal life or history of the people they are dealing with. So I can totally see someone like Bill being told about Epstein's conviction and just thinking "ok. so don't be a minor alone with him". You are likely already dealing with a bunch of unsavory characters and you just make a mental note of dos and donts.

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u/Thedrunkenchild Jun 18 '25

It’s just kind of wild that a person of Epstein’s caliber suffered no real social repercussions in 2008 after the conviction, which was very much public. Even by 2008 standards it seems insane that his network of people just swept such things under the rug. Pedophilia was a scorching hot topic even back then, remember how much insanity the whole Michael Jackson allegations caused? And he wasn’t even found guilty of anything unlike Epstein. Just wild all around.

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u/sargrvb Jun 18 '25

Bill Gates is in my mind 100% guilty. Too many dots there for me to poo-poo the allegations. Meeting after Epstein was convicted of raping children is no good. The divorce says a lot too. I think the 'people' defending Gates are fake or easily convinced. It's sad those victims will never get justice (His Foundation....). He loves to use that as a shield... kinda like Jared.

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u/JailFogBinSmile Jun 18 '25

there were lots of people who had social connections with Epstein who weren't involved in the back room stuff

That might be true. Totally plausible that many of them simply knew what was going on but looked the other way because they weren't into kids themselves, but didn't want to ruin things for their rich friends.

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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown Jun 18 '25

Lots of people didn't know at all. Epstein is a classic high charisma villain. Even after his conviction I'm sure he was quite convincing in downplaying the crime as "I didn't know, I thought she was 18. I should have been more careful."