BILL GATES’ $130 BILLION DIVORCE EXPLODES!
Inside computer king’s 27-year marriage
MICROSOFT kingpin Bill Gates and wife Melinda have filed for divorce after three kids, 27 years of marriage — and NO PRENUP — putting her in line for HALF his gargantuan $130 billion fortune.
That would drop the 65-yearold software sultan from fourth to seventeenth on the list of the world’s richest folks, with only a pitiful $65 billion left to his name!
However, the couple have already divvied up their monster fortune in an earlier hushhush “separation contract” signed before the bust-up went public.
Whatever sized chunk she’s agreed to, it figures that Melinda, 56, isn’t asking for support in her bombshell April 3 divorce filing.
However, she insists the marriage is “irretrievably broken.”
A source says she complained he spent too much time on work.
Oldest child Jennifer, 25, who has brother Rory, 22, and sister Phoebe, 18, says the family has being suffering through “a challenging stretch of time.”
Bill and Melinda insist they’ll continue to work together on their charitable Gates Foundation, saying: “We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in the next phase of our lives.”
Bill’s gearing up to fight for his dollars by hiring billionaire pal Warren Buffett’s 97-year-old star lawyer Charlie T. Munger.
Bill was 31 and had just earned his first billion when he met Melinda at a trade show in 1987.
They got hitched in 1994 and she quit working as a Microsoft marketer two years later to focus on having a family.
The former couple’s holdings include five estates, costly artworks, a fleet of expensive vehicles, a private jet and 200,000 acres of farm and ranch land in Louisiana, Arkansas, Nebraska, Washington state and Arizona, and a $125 million family compound outside of Seattle.