On the May 27 episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, Gayle King opened up to host Alex Cooper about a painful chapter in her life: discovering that her then-husband, William Bumpus, was cheating on her with one of her best friends.
Bumpus, who had previously apologized publicly to King and their children, issued another apology the same day the podcast aired. In a statement shared with TMZ, he said, “My deepest apologies to Gayle, to our daughter Kirby and her husband, Virgil, to our son William and his wife, Elise, and to our three grandchildren, for the pain I caused decades ago. Those actions were mine. I have long owned them — including publicly in my own words in 2016, which still stand.”
He continued, “Gayle has every right to share what was a painful chapter that changed the trajectory of our marriage and our family nearly forty years ago. I respect her right to tell her story, and that’s where I’ll leave it.” Bumpus added that he is “endlessly grateful to Gayle,” and that despite the past, they “remain in a good place.”
Speaking with TMZ on Thursday, May 28, King said she was “surprised” by Bumpus’ latest apology but “appreciated what he had to say” about what was a “very painful time” in her life.
“But people need to understand that anybody who has been through it knows how painful it is,” she told the outlet. “But I also know that you can go through it and get through it on the other side.”
She emphasized that Bumpus’ infidelity happened long ago and that both of them have “healed” and “moved on.” King noted, “The reason why I can talk about it so candidly, to be honest with you, is because … so much time has passed. I’m in a really great place, and so is he.”
King and Bumpus tied the knot in 1982, but their marriage unraveled after the affair. On the Call Her Daddy podcast, King reflected on the moment she found out Bumpus was cheating on her with her friend after returning home early with their kids.
“He comes flying out of the room. He’s got a towel on, and he goes, ‘You can’t come in,’” King recalled, saying her reaction was, “What do you mean I can’t come in? What are you talking about?”
Eventually, King found one of her close friends “cowering behind the door in my towel.” She remembered confronting her: “’I can’t believe that you are here and that you are doing this. I can’t believe that you are doing this.’ And I even said, ‘I thought we were friends!’ It sounded so pitiful.”
King quickly asked her nanny to take the kids to a different room to shield them from the heartbreaking scene. She told Cooper that she was desperate to keep Bumpus’ affair private, explaining, “Because I was thinking, ‘The kids are here. I don’t want anybody to know.’ That was my main thought — I don’t want anybody to know… I kept thinking, I don’t want it to be a scene because they’re little. They know this person.”
Although she and Bumpus tried to make their relationship work, they eventually divorced in 1993.
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