Summer Finds Under $40: UV Stickers, XL Beach Blanket, More
Ariana Brockington
Trending News Reporter
Gayle King and Oprah Winfrey’s friendship has spanned decades, creating an unbreakable bond that King leaned on when she went through a challenging moment in her life.
The “CBS Mornings” anchor appeared as a guest on the May 27 episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast and shared a detailed explanation about why her marriage with ex-husband William Bumpus ended.
During her conversation with host Alex Cooper, King revealed how she discovered Bumpus was cheating on her and how Winfrey, her dear friend of over 50 years, helped her process the infidelity.
In the episode, Cooper mentioned that Winfrey had an opinion about King’s ex. “Oh, Lord. Yes she did,” King replied before recalling the moment she learned about her husband’s affair.
King said she had an inkling something was wrong when she and her former spouse were playing tennis with another couple, who were their friends. She noticed there was “such an intimacy” in the way her friend spoke to Bumpus. But, she said when she mentioned the interaction to her then-husband later, he tried to “gaslight” her and quell her suspicions.
“That said, I still didn’t think anything,” King noted. “And Oprah always says, ‘Sometimes you get a whisper, and then when you ignore the whisper, it becomes a little pebble, and then you ignore the pebble. And next thing you know, it keeps going. Then you have a full-blown catastrophe.”
King’s catastrophic moment came when she returned home from a trip earlier than expected and found her husband cheating with the same woman they played tennis with.
King remembered arriving at her house with their two children — Kirby and William, Jr. — and thinking it was odd that the alarm was set. She said her husband then came “flying out of the room” with a towel on and told her she couldn’t come inside. She later found a woman, whom she and Cooper nicknamed “Casey,” “cowering behind the door in my towel.”
After Bumpus and the woman left, King immediately called Winfrey.
“I called Oprah. Oprah goes, ‘Wait, let me get this straight. He left you there alone and went with her?’” King shared.
Even though King wasn’t ready to face reality, Winfrey told her these eight words: “‘You don’t even know how bad this is.’”
King said “it was a good point,” but “at the time I couldn’t hear it.”
King said the two stayed on the phone for about two hours and that Winfrey was the only person she confided in.
“My mom is no longer with us. I was very close to my mom. I talked to my mom every single day, twice a day, (but didn’t tell her) because I didn’t want anybody to know. I got three sisters, didn’t tell them.” King continued. “The only person I told was Oprah.”
Winfrey told her to call the other woman’s husband and break the news to him. He initially didn’t believe King until she mentioned intimate details.
King and Bumpus, who married in 1982, divorced in 1993. The journalist revealed that the two briefly reconciled after their split, but she realized he had not changed and she didn’t trust him.
“He was cheating again. But now I had to go back with him because he was crying. He was apologizing, and I said, ‘But now he’ll be with somebody else, and then he’ll be all better,’” she recalled thinking before Winfrey stepped in to give her some tough love.
“Oprah goes, ‘No, he ain’t changed,’” King shared. “I said, ‘Oprah, you don’t understand, because you don’t have children. He was on his knees and he was crying.’ She goes, ‘Yeah, OK.’”
Finally, Winfrey had enough of King’s excuses.
“She got so sick of hearing (it). She goes, ‘Please go back with him. Please. I will drive the moving van. Please!’ That’s when you realize you’re telling people too much,” King added laughing.
But King said Winfrey was there for her and always listened to her relationship woes. She joked that Winfrey would now say that it felt like they went through the divorce together.
She also credited Winfrey for making her see that the situation was beyond repair. King shared that Winfrey asked her to fly to Chicago to take her mind off things.
“She goes, ‘I will send you tickets. You, Kirby and Will come to Chicago. Just come. Just get on a plane and leave,’” Winfrey told her.
King said that she needed to know the truth and that that realization helped lead her to the life she has now. She knew she needed to be with someone who was proud of her and didn’t feel threatened by her success.
“That will never happen to me again,” she said. “You want somebody who lifts you up. You want somebody who’s proud of you. You want somebody who thinks, ‘God, I think it’s great being with you.’ I’m looking for him.”
Ariana Brockington is a trending news reporter at TODAY digital. She is based in Los Angeles.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLCApple®, Apple logo® and App Store® are registered trademarks of Apple Inc.
Leave a Reply