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Melinda French Gates will not change her name after her divorce, according to court documents

Connor Perrett   

Melinda French Gates will not change her name after her divorce, according to court documents
International1 min read
  • Melinda French Gates will not change her name as part of her divorce, court documents show.
  • Gates and her husband, the Microsoft founder Bill Gates, announced their divorce Monday.
  • The two were married for 27 years.

Melinda French Gates will not change her name as part of her divorce from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, court documents show.

According to court filings, French Gates did not request a name change as part of her divorce, announced publicly by the couple on Monday.

The court filing also indicated that the couple had already been separated at the time of the petition for divorce, filed by French Gates on Monday.

In the filing, French Gates described the marriage as "irretrievably broken." The two were married in Hawaii in 1994.

The couple, who first met in 1987, announced the split after 27 years of marriage. They have three adult children, Phoebe, 18, Rory, 21, and Jennifer, 25.

"After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage," the couple said in a statement Monday. "Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives."

The two founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, which quickly became one of the most influential private nonprofit organizations in the world and boasts a nearly $50 billion endowment. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded both Gates and French Gates with Presidential Medals of Freedom for their foundation's work.

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