Gayle King recently opened up about the long-running rumours surrounding her close friendship with Oprah Winfrey and how the speculation once took a real emotional toll on her.
In an interview with host Alexandra Cooper on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, King reflected on the years of friendship with Winfrey and the rumours claiming that she and Winfrey were secretly in a romantic relationship.
“Tell me how that feels when you guys have had to handle those headlines, handle those rumors, handle that speculation,” Cooper asked King.
“It used to really bother me,” King admitted. She explained that the rumours became especially difficult after her divorce from attorney William G. Bumpus in 1993, saying tabloids even suggested her friendship with Winfrey was the reason for the split.
“I was recently divorced, and the National Enquirer did a story about how that’s the reason for the divorce, because they’re secretly gay,” she shared.
The veteran broadcaster made it clear that there would be nothing wrong with it if they were in a relationship, but said that the rumours simply were not true.
“Number one, if we were gay, we would tell you, because believe me, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just that I prefer a man. I prefer a man.”
King also revealed that she once begged Winfrey to publicly shut down the rumours on her talk show because of how much the speculation was affecting her personal life.
“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.
According to King, Winfrey’s response at the time was to simply ignore the noise and “leave it be”.
“I said, ‘Well, that’s fine for you to say. You have somebody. I don’t,’” she added.
These days, however, King said that she has reached a point where online opinions no longer affect her the way they once did.
“I’ve now gotten to the point in my life that very few things get to me,” she explained, adding that social media has become “an accelerator of hate.”
The pair’s friendship has been under public scrutiny for decades, mostly because of how close they have remained over the years. King and Winfrey first met as young journalists in the 1970s and have since become one of entertainment’s most well-known friendships.
According to “Variety”, Winfrey also previously reflected on the public fascination with their friendship during an episode of “Moments That Make Us” in 2024.
“Maybe people aren’t accustomed to seeing women with this kind of true bond,” Winfrey said at the time.
“The reason why I think our friendship has worked is that Gayle is happier, not happy, for me in any kind of success or victory or challenge I get through than I am for myself.”
