Gayle King is best known for her journalistic prowess and being Oprah's bestie. Gayle has lived her own interesting and storied life. She opened up about that life during the last stop of Oprah's 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus tour.
Many people are talking about how Gayle opened up about the backlash she received for comments made about Kobe Bryant shortly after his death. While that was a big story and certainly a learning moment for Gayle, a story about her own life gives more insight into Gayle outside of her job.
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Gayle was married to William Bumpus from 1982 to 1993. They share two children, daughter Kirby and son William Jr. Gayle was away on a trip with her two children when she came home to discover the ultimate betrayal. She found her husband in bed with another woman who happened to be a friend. Gayle recalled that moment and what going through the resulting contentious divorce was like for her.
Gayle King is a very accomplished woman. She has enjoyed a long and successful career in broadcast journalism. She also had the good fortune of making a useful friend while rising through the ranks. Gayle and Oprah Winfrey met in the late 1970s when Gayle was a production assistant at Baltimore's WJZ-TV.
The two have been the best of friends ever since, so it's no surprise that Oprah sat down with Gayle as part of her 2020 Vision tour.
What is surprising, however, is that this is the first time that Oprah has formally interviewed Gayle. The conversation began with a reflection on their friendship.
Oprah revealed that she'd done her homework before the interview and learned something she never knew about Gayle. It related to her 1993 divorce from ex-husband William Bumpus.
Oprah recalled Gayle telling her that she was considering getting back together with her husband. "At one point she was going to get back together with her husband and I said, please do. Because I feel like I have been dragged through this divorce," she joked.
Gayle knew Oprah didn't really mean it, of course. She recalled Oprah's advice at the time.
"Yes, I did. And she kept saying to me, you shouldn't. It's a mistake. It's a mistake," Gayle noted.
"Finally she said, ‘Please get back with him. And I will send a moving truck.’ And I said to her, ‘Well, you don't understand because you don't have children.’ He was on his knees and he was crying. And she said, ‘Mm-hmm. That doesn't mean anything.’ I go, ‘You just don't understand.’ So she said, ‘Please get back with him.’"
The reunion didn't last. Gayle recalled struggling to tell her children that their parents would be getting divorced.
"What had happened was — (laughter) — what had happened was we had moved into one house and another and I did say that ‘Daddy has to go into the other house because there's a burglar. And daddy's gonna help catch the burglar. So he's not gonna be here for a while,’" she recalled.
"And then — then Will said to me later, three weeks later, ‘Has daddy caught the burglar yet?’ I go, ‘No, he's still trying. He's still trying.’ Because I couldn't bring myself to tell them that we were getting a divorce. Now, I have to say, I'm surprised that you said that you had never heard that story. Because, Oprah, at the time you said, ‘That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard.’"
Oprah may not have been on board with that idea, but she does admire how Gayle handled the rest of the divorce. Gayle went on to recall how it came to be. She'd been on a trip with her two kids. When the airline had to change their flights, they ended up coming home a day early.
"This was in the days before — remember when you didn't have cell phones and you would drive yourself to the airport and the airline used to call you and say ‘Your flight is cancelled, but we can get you on a flight if you leave right now.’ Remember those days? So I threw the kids in the car," she recalled.
"We rushed to the airport. I came home a day — actually, a day early," she continued. "He was not expecting — he was not expecting to see me, and I wasn't expecting to see her."
The ladies then discussed the phone call Gayle made to Oprah after the discovery. "So, guys — so he leaves — so Gayle calls me and she says, ‘Is Stedman in the room?’" Oprah recalled.
After Oprah got her longtime partner, Stedman Graham, out of the room, Gayle explained all. She let Oprah know that the woman was a married friend of theirs. The couple was close friends with her and her husband. William had to leave to take her to the train station after they were caught.
"So you know when they say the wife always knows? The wife always suspects? I tell you, I really — you know this," Gayle said. "I had no clue. No clue whatsoever."
Gayle said that she would have rationalized the situation away, had she not seen it for herself. "Oh, and they were — they were both nude, by the way. So I even had to see that," she revealed.
"But if they had been sitting there fully clothed, they just could have said, ‘Well, we were talking about whatever, whatever, whatever.’ Because she was a friend of mine. And ‘We were discussing something, something, something.’ So I did have — it did have to be that graphic. That's absolutely true."
"Anybody who's ever been betrayed that way in your own home, you know how that destroys your spirit," Oprah noted. "How it shatters you when somebody — so if anybody's gonna cheat, don't bring the person to your house. That is the least — that is the most disrespectful thing you can do."
Oprah went on to explain that she admired how despite Gayle's crushing revelation, she never spoke ill of her ex around her children.
"Because I think you have to love your children more than you're mad at him. And it also — it also, you would say, nobody wants to hear, you know what he did to me? Really, nobody cares about that," she explained.
"Nobody really cares except your closest friends, and even they get tired of hearing it. But you have to love your children more than — as much as you dislike him and are really very angry at him, you have to figure out a way to, you know, navigate that. And I'm happy to say, knock on wood, that we can actually, you know, be friends and have a civil conversation."
Oprah posed a tough question to Gayle. She asked Gayle if she believed she'd be in the same place in her life that she is in today if she had stayed married.
"I can say 150 percent absolutely not. Because — this was a very smart guy. Yale-educated lawyer. Former cop. Really smart. Very good looking. All the good things. But for whatever reason, you know, being married to me was difficult for him," she replied.
"And I can remember very clearly a conversation when he said, ‘I'll be glad when this Gayle King [expletive] is over.’ And I thought, God, I want somebody to kind of like this Gayle King [expletive]."
"I was just a local TV news anchor. It's not like I was a big person. It wasn't that. But you want somebody, whatever you're doing, to celebrate your success, whatever that is," she continued.
"And so I found myself turning down things with you. Turning down going to different places because I knew that that would be upsetting to him. And you want somebody who sort of cheers you on in whatever that is."
Gayle was able to come into herself after experiencing the thing she thought would ruin her life. For so many women, that's a story that resonates deeply. Today, Gayle enjoys the life she's always wanted and worked hard for, and she can live that life unapologetically.
