Gayle King is making it clear that the long-running rumors about her bond with Oprah Winfrey are old news, but they did not always roll off her back.
During the May 27 episode of “Call Her Daddy,” the CBS Mornings anchor opened up about years of speculation that she and Oprah, her best friend of nearly 50 years, were secretly in a romantic relationship. Gayle said the chatter became especially frustrating after her divorce from William Bumpus, whom she split from in 1993.
“It used to really bother me,” Gayle told Alex Cooper. “I was recently divorced and The National Enquirer did a story about, ‘That’s the reason for the divorce because they’re secretly gay.’”
From there, Gayle said the rumor was not just annoying, it started interfering with her personal life.
“Number one, if we were gay, we would tell you because believe me, there’s nothing wrong with it,” she added. “It’s just, I prefer a man. So, we would tell you.”
According to Gayle, she pushed Oprah more than once to address the speculation publicly on her talk show, especially because she felt it made dating harder.
“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,’” Gayle recalled. “And she said, ‘No, we should just leave it be.’”
Gayle said Oprah, who has been with longtime partner Stedman Graham for decades, was not moved by the request. Gayle remembered telling her, “‘Well, that’s fine for you to say you have somebody. I don’t.’”
However, Gayle says she handles public noise differently now.
“I’ve now gotten to the point in my life that very few things get to me,” she explained. “Because, you know, when you go on social media, it is an accelerator on hate.”
“As long as I feel good about what I’m doing, the people I respect and trust are okay with it, who will say, ‘Well mom, maybe you shouldn’t have done that or somebody whose opinion I value,” she added. “Otherwise, you’ll drive yourself nuts. So now I really don’t care.”
Oprah also addressed the rumors in 2024, saying, “For years people used to say we were gay.”
“Maybe people aren’t accustomed to seeing women with this kind of truth bond,” Oprah added.
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
