Bill Gates Denies 'Completely False' Claims in Jeffrey Epstein Emails That He Contracted an STI from ‘Russian Girls’ By Charna Flam

Newly released emails by the U.S. Department of Justice include Jeffrey Epstein’s allegations that Bill Gates planned to hide a sexually transmitted infection from his then-wife, Melinda French Gates.

On Friday, Jan. 30, the DOJ released over 3 million files from the criminal investigations into Epstein. Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged with sex trafficking of minors. One month later, Epstein died in an apparent suicide while awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City.

The newly released documents include draft emails Epstein addressed to himself, in which he alleges Bill caught an STI from “Russian girls.” 

One of the July 18, 2013, emails, with “Bill” as the subject, includes claims that Bill received antibiotics for the STI. “To add insult to the injury you then subsequently with tears in your eyes, implore me to please delete the emails regarding your std, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda, and the description of your penis,” Epstein’s email read.

“These claims are absolutely absurd and completely false,” a spokesperson for Gates said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE.

“The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame,” the statement read.

The drafted emails seemed to appear to be written for Boris Nikolic, an adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. However, the emails do not directly outline the drafts that were actually written on Nikolic’s behalf. As The Sunday Times reported, there is no indication that the former advisor was aware of the emails or the unsubstantiated allegations.

Nikolic, a physician and biotech venture capitalist, resigned as chief adviser for science and technology to the Gates Foundation in 2014.

In 2019, a spokesperson for Nikolic said that he had no business ties with Epstein, Bloomberg reported. PEOPLE reached out to Nikolic’s representation.

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One email reads: “In my role as his right hand man I have been asked and wrongly acquiesced into participating in things that have ranged from the morally inappropriate, to the ethically unsound and have been repeatedly asked to do things that get near and potentially over the line into the illegal.”

“From helping Bill to get drugs, in order to deal with consequences of sex with Russian girls, to facilitating his illicit trysts, with married women, to being asked to provide adderall for bridge tournaments, as I am a medical doctor, but have no prescriptions writing ability,” the email continued.

The recent release of files comes after the DOJ released several images in November and December 2025 of Epstein with Gates, as well as Woody Allen, Steve Bannon and Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Two of the photos show Gates posing with women whose faces were redacted.

Gates previously said that his conversations with Epstein were “a huge mistake.”

“In retrospect, I was foolish to spend any time with him. And he, sort of, got time with various people by spending time with other people,” Gates said in a January 2025 interview with The Wall Street Journal. “So yes, I think I was quite stupid. I thought it would help me with global health philanthropy. In fact, it failed to do that it was just a huge mistake.”

A source told PEOPLE in 2021 that Gates’ and Epstein’s meetings also allegedly caused a rift between him and Melinda. The couple, who wed in 1994, filed for divorce that year.

“As I said it’s not one thing, it was many things, but I did not like that he’d had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein,” the philanthropist, 57, said in a March 2022 interview with CBS Morning‘s Gayle King. “I made that clear to him.”