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- Melinda French Gates says moments of change have a lot to teach us, which is at the heart of her new book, The Next Day
- The book includes a lengthy chapter about her divorce from Bill Gates but much of it covers very personal anecdotes throughout her life
- “Transitions can be scary, exhilarating or both,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “But anything’s possible. And when you get to the other side, you’re going to be okay”
Melinda French Gates is opening up about her life’s most transformative moments — detailing how she decided to leave one of the world’s richest men, yes, but also a lot more.
“I’m not trying to give advice to anybody,” the billionaire philanthropist, cognizant of her own “absurd” privilege, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue.
But at 60, she’s been through a lot, including the journey of raising three children; the death of a dear friend, and the start of a new chapter while spending billions in support of women and girls everywhere.
“It takes courage forging a different life,” Melinda says. “When you change paths you realize, oh, it’s a big opening.”
Or as she writes on page one of her new book, The Next Day: “There’s a lot that’s happened in my life over the last few years that I didn’t see coming.”
The transition that’s most painful to discuss is her split from Bill Gates, 69, whom she first met in 1987 after joining Microsoft as a product marketer and married in 1994.
“It was important for me to be real,” she explains of the chapter in her book tracing the end of their marriage.
“Hopefully,” she adds “it’s helpful to someone else.”
Much of The Next Day (out April 15) has nothing to do divorce. But, every detail Melinda shares — gaining 79 lbs. during her first pregnancy, learning not to let guilt taint the joy of motherhood, choosing to walk away from her career for her family, pledging to eventually give away most of her money — explores the same feeling of uncertainty.
“Transitions can be scary, exhilarating or both,” she says. “But anything’s possible. And when you get to the other side, you’re going to be okay.”
• For more on Melinda French Gates’ life after divorce, what she’s learned and what’s next for her and her philanthropy, subscribe to PEOPLE or pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday.
Growing up in Texas with dad Raymond, an aerospace engineer, and mom Elaine as the second oldest of four siblings in a staunchly Catholic family, Melinda was the kind of girl who made lists — in cursive — about what she wanted to achieve.
Looking back at some of those goals, like having longer fingernails, makes her cringe. But other dreams, like becoming a mom and doing work that “would matter to the world,” have become cornerstones of her life.
When she was was pregnant with her daughter Jennifer — now 28 and a mom of two daughters herself — Melinda gained 79 lbs. which, as she notes in her book, is more than double what the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends.
“To me, that weight was the external projection of something I began feeling the very second I saw the plus sign on the pregnancy test: freedom,” she writes.
Her doctor wasn’t immediately on board. But, once they established her health wasn’t at risk — nor was the baby’s — she told him, “quite forcefully,” that she “didn’t want to hear a single additional word” about the topic.
That sense of freedom also manifested in her decision to quit her job at Microsoft, where she had worked for more than nine years in product management and marketing.
“At the time, I was totally focused on being the kind of mother I wanted to be,” she tells PEOPLE.
Plus, somebody needed to be there full-time. “Bill didn’t have just a normal job,” she says. “I knew that when I signed up for that marriage.”
But she always thought she’d work agin. “I’d managed a team of 1,800 people, and I was good at it,” she says, going on to point out that it’s not like a woman’s skills go away just because she steps away.
“And in raising children,” she adds, “she gains some new ones too.”
Although the Gates kids are all grown up and out of the house now, they still call their mom to vent, to think out loud and to get her honest opinion. “They count on me for that,” she says.
For instance, when Jenn, then in medical school, became a mom in 2023, Melinda offered some feedback — the kind she herself needed to hear decades ago.
“I said, ‘You’re doing a really great job,’ because it’s hard to know,” French Gates recalls. “And she really heard me.”
Moments of transition can be hard, yes, but they have a lot to teach, Melinda stresses. That truth is at the heart of The Next Day.
“The more often you can practice being in that uncomfortable space, the more you learn,” she says. “Don’t let the moment pass. Stay there for a while if you can.”
The Next Day is available for preorder now.
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