The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources, reports Jeffrey Epstein threatened to expose an affair Bill Gates allegedly had with a Russian bridge player.

According to the report, Epstein made the threat after Gates refused to join his philanthropic venture.

Epstein, who died in 2019, threatened Gates over the alleged affair with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova in a 2017 email, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Gates met Antonova in 2010, with the two playing in a tournament together after she moved to the Bay Area to work as a software engineer.

The two allegedly had a brief romance while Gates was still married to his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, sources told the Journal.

Epstein, meanwhile, met Antonova while she was looking for financial backers for a bridge academy and later paid for her to attend software coding school, according to the report.

“Mr. Gates met with Epstein solely for philanthropic purposes. Having failed repeatedly to draw Mr. Gates beyond these matters, Epstein tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship to threaten Mr. Gates,” a Gates spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal.

The spokesperson also said Gates never paid Epstein because of the threat and that he had “no financial dealings” with Epstein.

Mark Heim is a reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim. He can be heard on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5 FM in Mobile or on the free Sound of Music App from 6 to 9 a.m. daily.