News anchor Gayle King revisited the longstanding lesbian rumors about her and Oprah during an appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast on Wednesday.
Gayle met then-news anchor Oprah Winfrey when she worked at WJZ-TV in Baltimore. Oprah would go on to become King’s lifelong friend and benefactor.
But lesbian rumors dogged them over the decades. Gayle said Oprah was unbothered by the rumors. When Gayle asked Oprah to deny the rumors on her show, Oprah told Gayle to “leave it alone.”
“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 told Oprah, “That’s fine for you to say – you have somebody, I don’t!”
With age comes wisdom, and Gayle doesn’t care what people think now. “Very few things get to me,” she said. “So now I really don’t care.”
Gayle King DENIES the rumors that she’s in a lesbian relationship with Oprah Winfrey and tells Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper how the rumors negatively impacted her love life ??
She also reveals Oprah did NOT want her addressing the rumors publicly on her shows pic.twitter.com/dzgJqNma4v
— Killa ? (@KillaKreww) May 27, 2026
Gayle also recalled the time she caught her husband of 11 years cheating on her with a close friend.
“I came home and caught him,” she said of her ex-husband William Bumpus. Gayle told the other woman, who was wearing a towel, “‘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.”
William is the father of Gayle’s children – son Will, 39, and daughter Kirby, 40.
Gayle King recalls finding out her ex-husband was cheating with her close friend. ? https://t.co/CytvWlcb21
Credit: Call Her Daddy pic.twitter.com/fIow7DqSEg
— TMZ (@TMZ) May 27, 2026