The Mysterious Mr. Epstein
When Bill and Melinda Gates recently shocked the world by announcing that they were getting divorced rumors began to swirl that one of the reasons the Microsoft mogul and his wife were splitting was because of Bill’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
That makes sense. It’s not unusual for someone to not like a partner’s friends, particularly if the friend in question happens to be a prolific sex criminal and one of the world’s most notorious sex traffickers.
That, friends, is NOT the kind of friend you want to have. I don’t care if he has his own private island and yachts and planes. If someone is destined to go down as one of history’s greatest monsters, they’re not the kind of person you want to have in your life.
It makes sense that Melinda Gates would be creeped out by her soon to be ex-husband’s emotional bond with someone whose name is synonymous with Caligula-level decadence and transgression.
What doesn’t make sense is Bill Gates being friends with Jeffrey Epstein in the first place. What does a man like Epstein have to offer someone like Gates, one of the richest and most powerful people in the world, with a net worth of a little over one hundred and forty-five billion dollars?
I found out my answer in between writing this post and editing it: apparently Gates cried on Epstein’s shoulder about his troubled marriage. Because who is better qualified to give sound advice on relationships than the world’s most notorious pervert? Oh, and also he thought Jeffrey Epstein could help score him a Nobel Prize.
AND it appears Gates is something of a horndog himself, with an unfortunate history of mixing the personal and the professional in icky and uncomfortable ways. In fact, the more I learn about Gates’ personal life, the less I like the guy. I thought he was a good dude. Now he seems like a real creep.
Epstein is famous for three things primarily. He’s famous for his very public friendships with presidents, royals, entertainment moguls, hotshot scientists and titans of industry, including such figures of unimpeachable integrity as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Woody Allen.
During his lifetime, Epstein collected famous friends the way other millionaires collect classic cars or paintings. Secondly, Epstein was famous for being a sociopathic sex criminal who groomed countless underage girls who he sexually assaulted and trafficked and offered to other wealthy, powerful men.
Finally Epstein is notorious for the dark and mysterious way his dark and mysterious life ended: with the globe-trotting financier dead in a prison cell, the victim of an apparent suicide. Of course a whole lot of people think Epstein did not commit suicide but rather was killed by one of the many powerful people whose secrets he knew.
What did people like Gates see in Epstein even after his voracious sexual appetite for underage girls became public knowledge? It couldn’t have been money. It couldn’t have been power either and I sure hope that it did not come down to sex because I want to believe, for the sake of my fragile mental health, that not every billionaire is evil and uses their money and power for nefarious purposes.
Gates was undoubtedly flattered that someone as wealthy and smart and connected as Epstein would be aggressively interested in his friendship. It’s also possible that Epstein offered his friends something other rich and connected people couldn’t–a world without boundaries or restrictions, where you were forever encouraged to order off life’s menu.
It’s also true that before the sordid revelations of #MeToo it was possible for monsters like Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein and R. Kelly to operate in plain sight, confident that money, power and powerful connections would keep them from ever facing consequences for their awful crimes.
Famous, rich and powerful people who should have known better hung out with Epstein, and made him more powerful and connected through their personal and professional association because they could get away with it, and because everybody else was doing it.
Epstein made people who were already feted like minor deities feel particularly special and unique and wanted. He played to their narcissism, their ego, their sense that they occupied a different, more exciting and decadent world than everyone else did.
I’m sure blackmail and child sex trafficking also played a role in Epstein’s opportunistic friendships with the rich and famous. But there were other things undoubtedly at play as well.
Epstein’s downfall will hopefully discourage other sociopaths from using their intellect and lack of a conscience to destroy countless lives but it will hopefully also lead the Bill Gates of the world to think long and hard about who they associate with, because the consequences for empowering monsters like Epstein can, and should, be huge, particularly if you’re one of the richest and most powerful people in the world, and intent on leaving behind a positive legacy, as Gates clearly is.
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