In his 1997 book, James Wallace said the Microsoft co-founder’s womanising ways strained his relationship with then girlfriend Melinda
As Bill and Melinda Gates announced their decision to end their marriage after 27 years together, a biographer has spilled the beans on the Microsoft co-founder’s younger years.
Biographer James Wallace has described him as a womanising party-boy during his early years, a UK-based tabloid recently reported.
Wallace has claimed that Gates once allegedly held naked parties with strippers during his wild bachelor days.
The alleged parties took place at Gates’s Laurelhurst, Washington home and were first detailed in Wallace’s 1997 book, Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace.
He described the parties as “wild” and said the racy events would often see Gates and his entourage flock to one of Seattle’s all-nude nightclubs and “hire dancers to come to his home and swim naked with his friends in his indoor pool”.
Strain on relationship
Wallace described a young Gates as a renowned “womaniser”, with his antics reportedly placing a strain on his relationship with Melinda while they were dating.
“Though Gates began dating French [Melinda’s maiden name] in 1988, he continued to play the field for a while, especially when he was out of town on business, when he would frequently hit on female journalists who covered Microsoft and the company industry,” a passage of the book reads.
“His womanising was well known, although not well reported, because Gates and Microsoft spoon-fed stories to industry writers for such papers as The New York Times, and none of them wanted the flow of information to stop.”
Melinda was said to be “well aware” of Gate’s womanising and “consequently their relationship ran hot and cold”, the report said.
