Melinda French Under Fire for Profiting Off Bill Gates’ Famous Name After Discouraging Their Kids from Doing the Same
Bill Gates’ daughter revealed a long-held family rule that quickly sent fans into speculation about her mother and how the billionaire’s alimony is really being used.
Host Phoebe Gates is one of three children born during the Microsoft co-founder’s 27-year marriage to Melinda French Gates. The former couple also share their eldest daughter, Jennifer, and their youngest son, Rory.
But during her podcast, Phoebe surprised listeners when her mother’s name came up and she revealed that she and her two siblings were discouraged from using her famous surname at a very young age.
The 23-year-old claimed she wasn’t allowed to use her famous father’s last name until high school during the resurfaced episode.
“My parents were really intentional about making sure we didn’t use my dad’s last name Gates until we were in high school,” Phoebe revealed. “We went by my mom’s last name, and it really allowed me to be able to make friends in like a really authentic way.”
Her mother’s maiden last name was French, and she said her parents wanted her and her brother Rory to be themselves as they met their peers throughout elementary school, without the burden of being known as the billionaire’s children.
“Before, I’d be like, ‘Oh, this is my family,’ or like, ‘This is who I’m related to,” Phoebe continued to say. “’Come over to my house,’ I don’t think it would have necessarily been good for me to be fully like in the spotlight as a child.”
Readers had several opinions after the article recirculated online, and one fan replied, “In other words, they were not allowed to use the name until it made a real difference.”
Another fan questioned the reveal while noting that Melinda Gates is still using her ex-husband’s name following their 2021 divorce after 27 years of marriage. “So why doesn’t the mother drop her ex-husband’s last name, give away his billions, and live in obscurity? Because she is a world-class hypocrite,” they wrote. “She keeps his name and hands out his money piecemeal so she can remain relevant.”
Another said, “We will know the result of her middle class value life when life actually takes her on. Currently, life is watching. She has blessings and that is her right of birth. Mom had a plan and attended to their care, not media exploited, no college crime, no magazine cover for a toxic topic.”
One reader even questioned how Phoebe’s friends could miss that she was a Gates just by the house she grew up in. The family’s massive 66,000-square-foot Lake Washington estate — famously nicknamed “Xanadu 2.0” — carries an estimated price tag of around $130 million.
Bill Gates is preparing for something.
In 1988, he built a $130M mansion with technology decades ahead of its time.
He claims it’s a “luxury resort.”
But hidden in the library is a $30M notebook from Leonardo da Vinci…
And it unveils the dark reason Gates built Xanadu 2.0: pic.twitter.com/NHaicuNtM3
— Fernando Cao (@thefernandocz) September 10, 2025
“Their house was 14,000 sf and an eyesore in a protected Puget Sound area,” added another. “They fought tooth and nail to build that monstrosity of a house. Perhaps they rented a middle-class house for playdates.”
“They were only allowed one chauffeur and the yellow Lamborghini for school lunch runs to and from the Guy Savoy,” joked another.
When the Gates finalized their divorce in 2021, attention quickly turned to the financial framework that had quietly shaped their nearly three-decades long marriage — including a long-standing prenuptial agreement and one of the largest divorce settlements in modern history.
Bill famously co-founded Microsoft in 1975, but Melinda was far more than just a spouse on the sidelines during his rise. After joining Microsoft herself in the late ’80s, she became a key partner in both his business ascent and the evolution of their global philanthropy through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Inverted couple
Miss Bill Gates of Hell with new boyfriend Paula “the Chin” Hurd
Pic 4) Bill’s ex-husband Manlinda pic.twitter.com/1LFMd4x540
— Bill Facio (@37Lemons) April 17, 2025
While the exact terms of their settlement were never fully disclosed, Melinda emerged from the split as a billionaire in her own right, underscoring just how central she had been to building and stewarding the empire behind the scenes.
Gates is now worth more than $100 billion, and the former Mrs. Gates reportedly has donated at least $1 billion to charities since her divorce through her own organizations, with a focus on empowering young girls and women as well as women’s health issues.
Following the divorce, Gates was romantically linked to 60-year-old Paula Hurd beginning in 2022, and the pair later went public with their relationship that same year. They have remained together since. Melinda, meanwhile, has also moved on and is currently dating entrepreneur Philip Vaughn.
