For more than 30 years, Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King have shared a special, intimate bond—and it's totally platonic.
The pair of television personalities and longtime friends have once again addressed the topic of their alleged romantic relationship, more than a decade after they first cleared the air. In a conversation with Melinda French Gates for her series “Moments That Make Us,” King put speculation to rest bluntly: “If we were gay we would tell you!”
Winfrey, 70, and King, 69, met in the late 1970s as colleagues working at a Baltimore-area news station and have appeared to be inseparable ever since. Over the decades, the duo have shared screen time, attended red carpet events together and embarked on numerous girls' trips, often fueling rumors that they were more than just friends.
In the early 2000s, both Winfrey and King publicly denied the rumors. In 2007, King told “Good Morning America” that she was surprised the rumors “were so big” and explained that the speculation “bothers me.”
“If we were, we would tell them,” he said at the time. “We don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. That’s what’s so frustrating.”
Similarly, Winfrey confirmed to the late “20/20” journalist Barbara Walters in 2010: “I am not a lesbian.”
“The reason why [the rumor] “What irritates me is that it means someone must think I’m lying,” Winfrey said at the time. “That’s the first thing. The second thing — why would you want to cover it up? That’s not the way I lead my life.”
Parts of the TV stars’ earlier responses were echoed during their one-on-one interview with Gates. Winfrey said she didn’t think people were “used to seeing women with this kind of bond of truth” and that her friendship with King has stood the test of time because the CBS News journalist is always “happier for me for any kind of success or victory or challenge that I overcome, than I am for myself.”
The duo also told Gates how their friendship positively affected their professional and personal lives. Winfrey noted that King would be living a different life if she had not divorced William Bumpus, with whom she has two children, in 1993 after 11 years of marriage.
“Gayle is the mother, the sister and the friend I never had,” Winfrey said, adding: “She fills as strong a role for me as a mother or a sister or anything else.”
