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She and Oprah Winfrey are not and have never been an item.
Sorry, folks.
In addition to revealing how she once caught her now-ex and his mistress (her former close friend), Gayle King also opened up about the longstanding gay rumors.
When tabloids first began claiming that the two were secret lovers, Gayle begged her bestie to quash the claims. Oprah declined.
‘If we were gay, we would tell you’
During the Wednesday, May 27 episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, Gayle told host Alex Cooper how the gay rumors used to get under her skin.
“I tell you this, it used to really bother me,” the iconic broadcast journalist admitted.
It all started in 1993, when she — famously — caught her ex-husband, William Bumpus, cheating with a close friend. The two divorced.
At the time, a tabloid ran a nonsensical story claiming that Gayle and longtime bestie Ooprah were “secretly gay.” And it got to her.
“Number one, if we were gay, we would tell you because, believe me, there’s nothing wrong with it,” Gayle emphasized. “It’s just I prefer a man. I prefer a man.”
“And then 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,’” Gayle recalled telling Oprah.
“‘You’ve got to say something.’ And she said, ‘No, we should just leave it be,’” she recalled. “‘No, I’m just going to leave it alone. Leave it alone.’”
Oprah was, for 25 years, one of the most watched and influential people on the planet. She still falls into the latter category.
“So, well, that’s fine for you to say. You have somebody. I don’t,” Gayle remembered grumbling at the time.
“So, it used to really bother me,” she reiterated. “And now even today there are still people that say, ‘Well, you know, the truth is. …’”
‘I’ve now gotten to the point in my life that very few things get to me’
Time has taught Gayle to care less about what others imagine her life to be like.
“I don’t care,” she bluntly admitted.
“I’ve now gotten to the point in my life that very few things get to me,” Gayle shared.
She explained that this is “because, you know, when you go on social media, it is an accelerator on hate.”
Gayle expressed: “As long as I feel good about what I’m doing … Otherwise, you’ll drive yourself nuts. So now I really don’t care.”
Oprah has been with Stedman Graham since 1986. She and Gayle met when both worked for WJZ-TV Baltimore.
Some people respond to gay rumors — in person or from tabloids — with explicit homophobia. Notably, Gayle is decidedly not doing that.
Incidentally, Gayle did not limit her commentary on relationships to clarifying that she likes men. She told Alex that she prefers younger men.
Honestly? Good for her. And, for what it’s worth, it’s pretty reasonable to be annoyed at people speculating that you and your bestie are secret lovers.
Gayle is a legendary broadcast journalist. She signed up to report the news. She never wanted to be the news.
Gayle King: I BEGGED Oprah to Quash the Gay Rumors! She Refused! was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.