Gayle King and Oprah Winfrey have spent five decades publicly modeling a friendship that has survived fame, heartbreak and constant attention. But King says there was a time when one rumor about their bond became so frustrating that she begged Winfrey to address it.
Appearing on the Call Her Daddy podcast, King said speculation that she and Winfrey were secretly in a romantic relationship “used to really bother” her, especially after her 1993 divorce from attorney William G. Bumpus.
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The CBS Mornings anchor recalled asking Winfrey to shut down the talk on her own platform.
“I would say to her, ‘You’ve got to say something on your show, because it’s hard enough for me to get a date on a Saturday night and now people think I’m a lesbian, you’ve gotta say something,’” King said.
Winfrey didn’t see it the same way. According to King, the media mogul told her they should simply “leave” the speculation alone.
King pushed back at the time, telling Winfrey: “Well, that’s fine for you to say. You have somebody. I don’t.”
Winfrey has been in a long-term relationship with Stedman Graham since 1986, while King was newly single after her marriage ended.
King says rumors were never true
King said the speculation intensified after her divorce, which followed Bumpus cheating on her with one of her friends. As one tabloid falsely suggested the real reason for the split was her relationship with Winfrey.
The veteran journalist was clear that the rumors were untrue, while also making the point that there would have been nothing shameful about it if they were.
“If we were gay, we would tell you because believe me, there’s nothing wrong with it,” King said. “It’s just, I prefer a man. So we would tell you.”
Over time, King said she has learned to stop giving the claims emotional power.
“I’ve now gotten to the point in my life that very few things get to me,” she said.
She added that social media has only intensified the way false narratives travel.
“When you go on social media, it is an accelerator on hate,” King said. “As long as I feel good about what I’m doing, the people I respect and trust are okay with it. Otherwise you’ll drive yourself nuts. So now I really don’t care.”
A friendship that outlasted the noise
King and Winfrey met in 1976 while working at WJZ-TV in Baltimore. Their friendship has since become one of the most recognizable in American media, partly because both women have spoken about it with unusual openness.
King said she has never viewed herself as existing in Winfrey’s shadow.
“I never see myself in her shadow. I always say I see myself in her light,” King said. “And I do mean that. I never thought, ‘God, I wish I could be her.’”
She described their bond as a place of complete trust.
“Once you’ve been in the inner circle of anyone’s life, it’s a really privileged place to be,” King said. “And I hold that very sacred. I know I can trust her with anything. And she, me.”
Winfrey has previously spoken with similar emotion. In a 2010 interview with Barbara Walters, she said of King: “She is the mother I never had. She is the sister everybody would want. I don’t know a better person.”
Now, after 50 years of friendship, it appears to have become just background noise around a bond neither woman feels the need to explain.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.marca.com ’
