A Chinese interpreter who works for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has denied wild rumors on social media that she was involved in the couple's divorce. Zhe 'Shelly' Wang, 36, took to Weibo, the Chinese social media site, on Wednesday, to refute all "unfounded rumors" that she was having an affair with Bill Gates.
Wang has been working for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for more than half a decade and right after the announcement of Bill, 65, and Melinda's, 56, divorce, many started speculating that million was having more than a professional relationship with the translator. Bill and Melinda announced their divorce earlier this week, ending their 27 years of marriage.
Refuting Rumors
Speculation has been rife since Monday that Wang may possibly be the one behind the divorce of Bill and Melinda, as she was having an affair with the Microsoft founder. However, on Wednesday Wang purportedly wrote on Weibo, "I thought that the rumors would go away by themselves, but I did not expect the rumors to become more and more crazily spread."
She continued, "How many books can I read, so why spend time on the unfounded rumors?"
"Thank you for your concern over the past 24 hours through private messages, and friends who helped me dispel rumors," she wrote in Mandarin. She ended her message with a link to a story titled "#Gates divorce, some vicious people rumor to vilify an innocent Chinese girl."
It is still unclear what led to Bill and Melinda's divorce but Wang unknowingly seems to have become a target of rumors. But the big question is how did her never emerge in this rumor.
Many believe that it was because of a set of photos that Wang had posted online of her translation engagements for the Gates Foundation. Given that she is young and good looking, rumors of her having an affair with Bill spread like wildfire on Chinese social media.
Strictly Professional
Those who know Wang has since come to her support. Li Donglei, who is friends with Wang, was shocked by the rumors and spoke out defending her in a blog post. "She is a former colleague of mine, a very clean girl, and a person I admire. I don't believe she would get involved in other people's marriages," wrote Li.
Wang, who lives in Seattle, is unmarried, and an accomplished professional translator who has done work for the Yale School of Management and Harvard Business School, as well as the Gates Foundation. Perhaps her unmarried status made many to speculate that she had more than a professional relationship with Bill.
According to her LinkedIn profile, which is now disabled, Wang has worked on several TED Conferences. She joined TED Conferences as an interpreter in April 2013, and she oversaw a team interpreting TED events into Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish.
According to Li, Wang was born in China and grew up in the port city of Guangzhou. She later immigrated to the United States. Before turning interpreter, Wang owned a restaurant, Four Seasons Hot Pot & Dumplings, in Provo, Utah, between 2006 and 2008.
Following that she attended Brigham Young University and received her Bachelor of Science degree in Business/Managerial Economics in 2007.
Proficient in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English, she went on to study Conference Interpretation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and started her career as an interpreter in the institute in 2012.
Besides, she had also worked as a flight attendant for Delta Airlines, according to her social media posts. According to Li, Wang also was planning to take flying training to get a pilot's license two years ago, and succeeded in qualifying.
It isn't know what exactly is the reason behind Bill and Melinda's divorce but it has emerged that the couple had a bonkers pact that allowed Bill to vacation every year with his ex-girlfriend Ann Winblad, at a cozy beach cottage in North Carolina. The billionaire made sure the bizarre arrangement was part of the deal when he married Melinda in 1994, he told Time magazine in a 1997 profile. Gates even sought Winblad's approval before proposing to his wife.
