Gayle King opened up about one of the most persistent rumors of her public life — and revealed that her closest friend refused to help her kill it.
Appearing on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast Wednesday, the CBS Mornings anchor described how decades of tabloid speculation that she and Oprah Winfrey were secretly in a romantic relationship once caused her real distress — particularly in the early 1990s, when her marriage was falling apart. The National Enquirer, she recalled, ran a story claiming the relationship with Winfrey was the true cause of her 1993 divorce from William Bumpus, a former Connecticut assistant attorney general. “It used to really bother me,” King told Cooper. “I was recently divorced, and the National Enquirer did a story about that’s the reason for the divorce — because they’re secretly gay.”
King was direct in her denial. “If we were gay, we would tell you, because believe me, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just I prefer a man.” She then described repeatedly pressing Winfrey to use the platform of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to publicly dismiss the rumors. Winfrey’s response, each time, was simply to leave it alone. For King, that was easier said than done. “It’s hard enough for me to get a date on a Saturday night,” she told Cooper, “and now people think I’m a lesbian. You’ve got to say something.”
Winfrey, who has been in a relationship with businessman Stedman Graham since 1986, never did. The two women, who are approaching 50 years of friendship, addressed the speculation together during a 2024 episode of “Moments That Make Us,” with Winfrey suggesting the public discomfort with their closeness said more about social expectations than about them. “Maybe people aren’t accustomed to seeing women with this kind of truth bond,” Winfrey said at the time.
King said she has largely made peace with the noise, social media, she noted, has only amplified it. “When you go on social media, it is an accelerator on hate,” she said. “Now I really don’t care.” The episode also covered King’s 1993 divorce and her four decades navigating sexism and racism in broadcast journalism.
