Gayle King is opening up about how her longtime friend Oprah Winfrey helped through her divorce from ex-husband William Bumpus.
The CBS Mornings host, 67, revealed that Oprah Winfrey was one of the first people she told about Bumpus’s infidelity on iHeartPodcast’s Now What? With Brooke Shields.
“I was married to someone who found monogamy very challenging — which is difficult in a marriage,” King told host Brooke Shields. “I think if I didn’t have children, I would’ve never spoken to him again.”
“Oprah — who has never been married and never had children — she is one of the best therapists ever,” she continued. “If she had a second career, It would be [a therapist]. When I first caught [my ex] I didn’t tell anyone but Oprah and my mother. I knew I could trust them.”
Gayle King admitted that she had reservations about marrying Bumpus before their 1982 wedding. The pair share two adult children, daughter Kirby and son Will.
“I remember when I first got married — I can remember looking in the mirror and my mom was helping me get dressed for my wedding,” she recalled.
“I remember saying, ‘Mom, How do I know that this is ’til death do us part’? How do I know for sure this is right?’ And she said, ‘Oh, you are just having cold feet. Everybody feels that way!'”
Back in 2016, when asked to name a living person she most despises during a Vanity Fair interview, King shared how she’d caught Bumpus in bed with another woman in 1990.
“‘Despise’ is a strong word,” replied King. “I’m not a huge fan of the woman I caught naked with my now ex-husband on June 24, 1990, at 9:16 P.M. — but I don’t remember the details.”
Gayle King went on to divorce Bumpus, a prosecutor in Connecticut, in 1993 after 11 years of marriage.