Melinda Gates is reflecting on her relationship with her body after being involved in a toxic relationship in her younger years.
“I remember caring in high school, but I felt good about myself — I should say, good enough about myself. But then I had a boyfriend in college that was really not a positive relationship for me at all,” Gates, 60, said on the Monday, April 14, episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show. “He cared a lot about how I looked and said a lot of things about it to me, and that really is not OK. It really is not.”
Gates shared that she took “too long” to stop the relationship and had “inculcated too many of those messages” by the time it came to an end.
“I would say that carried through with me into my 20s and even into my 30s,” she said. “And it wasn’t, probably, until I got to 40 that I got more OK with who I was.”
Bill Gates and Melinda Gates were married for more than two decades until their 2021 separation. “After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” Melinda wrote in a statement shared that May. “Over the last 27 years, we have raised […]
Now, Gates shared that she wants to “fit” because she wants to “be able to do all the things” she wants.
“I want to be healthy, but I’m not so focused on, you know, am I X weight or Y weight or do I fit in that size pants or another?” Gates explained. “It’s still there in the back of my head a little bit, but it just isn’t a big call anymore. Boy, when you take that down, that perfectionism around weight and body image, you take that down, you have so much more mind space.”
Gates shared that she worked with “several different nutritionists” as well doing work in therapy.
“I also got to a point where I realized that I was role-modeling for my daughters,” she continued. “For them, it was really important that I work on this in myself so I didn’t put any of that on them and so when they had body issues, they could come to me and I could be honest with them. One of the things that I have always said to all three of my three kids is, ‘You can count on me to be honest with you.’”
Melinda Gates responded to ex-husband Bill Gates’ statement that their divorce was “the mistake [he] most” regretted. “It was something that was necessary,” Melinda, 60, told The Sunday Times in a profile published on Sunday, April 13, addressing Bill’s January interview with the outlet about their breakup. “If you can’t live your values out inside […]
Melinda shares daughters Jennifer, 28, and daughter Phoebe, 22, as well as son Rory, 25, with ex-husband Bill Gates. (The pair, who tied the knot in 1994, announced their plans to divorce in 2021.)
For Melinda, focusing on work has helped her change her mindset. “The other thing the data shows is that if women are working and doing meaningful work, they focus less on body image,” she said. “Which, again, how beautiful is it to be able to put that energy and that time into things that you care about doing for the world?”
