Zhe 'Shelly' Wang, a Chinese interpreter for Bill and Melinda Gates' foundation, has rejected the "groundless" rumours that she was the reason behind the divorce of billionaire power couple Bill and Melinda Gates.
On May 3, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda left everyone surprised when they announced about their decision to end their marriage after 27 years.
"We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue to work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives," said the estranged couple.
It is learnt that Melinda decided to seek divorce and claimed the marriage was "irretrievably broken".
The news of the split sparked rumours of the reason behind the divorce and some reports claimed that Zhe 'Shelly' Wang, a translator for Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, shared a very close relationship with wither Bill or Melinda.
Wang took to Chinese social media platform Weibo on Friday and rejected the reports.
"I originally thought [the rumour] would be self-defeating from groundless sources, but I didn't expect it to get more crazy,' she wrote in Mandarin.
"Thank you for your concern over the past 24 hours through private messages, and friends who helped me dispel rumours."
Wang's friend Li Donglei also rejected the the rumours in a blog post.
"I think it is entirely my instinct that Wang Zhe can't do this kind of thing," Donglei wrote.
"Over the years, Wang Zhe has been doing interpretation work for the Gates Foundation for different projects, but she is not a full-time translator for Gates. I guess some people made up gossip about 'Gates cheating on a Chinese beauty' just because they saw Wang Zhe's translation work photos at the Gates Foundation and saw that she was a Chinese beauty and a single woman. They don't care about the slander of an innocent girl and her family by such rumours," Donglei added.
