Gayle King<\/strong> has revealed that she was once frustrated by Oprah Winfrey\u2019<\/strong>s refusal to publicly address longstanding rumors that the two were romantically involved.<\/p>\n The 71-year-old journalist admitted the speculation \u201cused to really bother\u201d her, so much so that after divorcing attorney William G. Bumpus in 1993, she begged Oprah to speak out about it publicly.<\/p>\n Speaking on the Call Her Daddy podcast<\/em>, King recalled saying to her longtime friend,\u201cYou\u2019ve got to say something on your show, because it\u2019s hard enough for me to get a date on a Saturday night, and now people think I\u2019m a lesbian. You\u2019ve gotta say something.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n According to King, Oprah<\/a>, who has been in a longtime relationship with Stedman Graham<\/strong>, felt it was better to ignore the gossip altogether. King remembered pushing back at the time, telling the media mogul, \u201cWell, that\u2019s fine for you to say. You have somebody. I don\u2019t.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The\u00a0CBS Mornings<\/em> anchor explained that the speculation intensified after her divorce, with one publication even falsely claiming the rumors were the reason her marriage ended.<\/p>\n Still, King made it clear the claims were completely untrue, while also emphasizing that there would\u2019ve been nothing wrong if they were. \u201cIf we were gay, we would tell you, because believe me, there\u2019s nothing wrong with it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just, I prefer a man. So we would tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n King added that she\u2019s since learned not to give the accusations emotional weight, despite social media making it easier for misinformation to spread quickly. \u201cWhen you go on social media, it is an accelerator on hate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs long as I feel good about what I\u2019m doing, and the people I respect and trust are okay with it, otherwise you\u2019ll drive yourself nuts. So now I really don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n King and Oprah, 72, have been close friends since first meeting in 1976. But despite Oprah\u2019s legendary career and headline-making interviews with stars including Michael Jackson<\/a>, Whitney Houston<\/strong>, and Tom Cruise<\/a>, King said she\u2019s never felt overshadowed by her friend\u2019s success.<\/p>\n \u201cI never see myself in her shadow. I always say I see myself in her light,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I do mean that. I never thought, \u2018God, I wish I could be her.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.hola.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gayle King has revealed that she was once frustrated by Oprah Winfrey\u2019s refusal to publicly address longstanding rumors that the two were romantically involved. The 71-year-old journalist admitted the speculation \u201cused to really bother\u201d her, so much so that after divorcing attorney William G. Bumpus in 1993, she begged Oprah to speak out about it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2436774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[21751,22958],"class_list":["post-2436773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-oprah-winfrey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Gayle-King-Opens-Up-About-Years-of-Speculation-Surrounding-Oprah.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2436773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2436773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2436773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2436775,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2436773\/revisions\/2436775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2436774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2436773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2436773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2436773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Steadman](\"https:\/\/www.hola.com\/us\/horizon\/original_aspect_ratio\/8a187a7a7527-steadman-graham-oprah-winfrey-and-gayle-king-attend-21st-annual-daytime-emmy-awa.jpg\")
\u00a9 Ron Galella, Ltd.<\/span><\/div>![\"Gayle](\"https:\/\/www.hola.com\/us\/horizon\/original_aspect_ratio\/92f0ebc9fe88-gayle-king-and-oprah-winfrey-exclusive.jpg\")
\u00a9 Mathew Imaging<\/span><\/div>