Oprah Winfrey has debunked a long-standing rumor that she and her lifelong best friend Gayle King have been in a secret romantic relationship for decades.
While appearing on the Melinda French Gates show Moments that make us In a series of interviews, the 70-year-old media mogul, who has been with her partner Stedman Graham for more than 35 years, reflected on her close bond with King, 69.
“I think we’ve shared pretty much everything and I have to say it wasn’t even a question of orientation,” the former daytime TV legend said. “For years, people used to say we were gay, and listen, we were always against that. And people can still think the same thing.”
King joked that she used to ask Oprah to do a show clarifying that they were just friends because “it was hard enough for her” to get a date on Saturday night without people thinking they were together.
“If we were gay, we would tell you!” the mother of two assured viewers.
Oprah Winfrey has debunked a long-standing rumor that she and her longtime best friend Gayle King are secretly romantically involved.
As for what she thinks fuels speculation that they are more than just friends, Winfrey said it’s because people are “not used to seeing women with this kind of real bond.”
“The reason I think our friendship has worked is because Gayle is happier, not happy, but happier for me for any kind of success or victory or challenge that I overcome than I am for myself,” the 20-time Emmy winner said.
He continued: “I feel as happy as she does. I can’t be happier than Gayle, I can’t be happier than her. There’s no one who can be happier than her. I’m just as happy for her.”
Winfrey noted that even a “hint of jealousy about anything” between friends can ruin a relationship.
“I just assumed that everyone had a really good friend,” King said of her friendship with Winfrey. “I just assumed that every woman, maybe not the men, but I assumed that every woman had at least one.”
King also noted that she’s not afraid to be honest with her best friend.
“In Oprah’s life, everyone is always complimenting her and agreeing with her,” she explained. “And sometimes I’m like, ‘That’s not true. Your hair doesn’t look right.'”
During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live in 2013, Winfrey denied ever “taking a dip in the lady pool.”
While appearing on Melinda French Gates’ Moments That Make Us interview series, the 70-year-old media mogul reflected on her close bond with King, 69 (seen in 2019).
Asked if she had ever been intimate with a woman, Winfrey replied: “No, no, I haven’t. Thank you.”
Three years earlier, she said in an interview with Barbara Walters that she is “not a lesbian” or “not even kind of lesbian.”
“Why would you want to hide it? That’s not how I live my life,” he said of his sexuality.
Asked to describe her relationship with King, Winfrey said her friend was “the mother” she “never had” and the “sister everyone would want.”
“She’s the friend everyone deserves,” Winfrey said. “I don’t know a better person.”
Winfrey and her partner Stedman Graham have been together for 35 years.
Winfrey previously revealed that King has joined her and Steadman on every one of their trips together since 1993 (seen in 1994).
The king has previously said it is “irritating and foolish that anyone still questions” the nature of their relationship.
“I think the most troubling thing that bothers me about this is the fact that we’re in denial, and we’ve both said this many times, implying that there’s something wrong with being gay. That people think we’re gay and deny it as if there’s something wrong. I think that’s unfair to gay people. I think it’s unfair to Stedman (Graham). I think it’s unfair to me and I think it’s unfair to her,” King said on Nightline in 2011.
In 2006, the friends set the record straight in an issue of Winfrey’s magazine, O.
“I understand why people think we’re gay,” Winfrey admitted. “In our culture, there’s no definition for this kind of bond between women. So I understand why people have to put labels on it: How can you be that close without it being sexual?”
“If we were gay, we’d tell them!” King assured viewers (seen in February 2024)
The couple also confirmed that they spoke on the phone “four times a day.”
At the time, King was emphatic that “there is nothing wrong with being gay” and that if they were, they would come out.
The king then confessed: “If Oprah were a man, I would marry her.”
“There’s something about this relationship that feels otherworldly to me, like it was designed by a power and a hand greater than my own,” Winfrey concluded. “Whatever this friendship is, it’s been a very fun ride.”
The duo met early in their careers while working for Baltimore station WJZ.
At the time, Oprah was a host and King was working as a production assistant in a different department.
During an issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, King recalled how Oprah generously invited her to stay with her during a snowstorm.
During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live in 2013, Winfrey denied having “taken a dip in the lady pool” (pictured, January 2024).
“We became friends that first night because for the first time I met someone who I felt was like me,” Gayle said. “I had never met anyone like that. Let alone another black girl. I grew up in an all-white community.”
Looking back at themselves as twenty-somethings, Winfrey said they both felt like “the odd girl out” and “didn’t fit into everyone’s perception of what it is to be a black girl.”
“But we still had a strong sense of being black and we were very proud of it. So meeting another black girl like that was amazing,” King added.
Since their fateful introduction, the friends have enjoyed countless vacations together and have collaborated professionally on various projects.
King even chose Winfrey to be godmother to his two sons, Kirby Bumpus, 38, and William Bumpus Jr., 37.
The duo met early in their careers while working for Baltimore station WJZ; seen in 2001.
Even after all these years, King said she never gets tired of being asked about her best friend in interviews.
“I never get tired of being asked about Oprah because I love that she is loved for who she is. I love that she is accepted for who she is. And that makes me proud,” she told Newsweek in March 2024.
She explained: ‘I feel about Oprah the same way I feel about (my) favorite son, Will, and (my) favorite daughter, Kirby, which is that I can’t wait for people to meet them because they never let me down.’
Finally, King said he had never been in Oprah’s “shadow.”
“I see myself in her. That’s why whenever someone says something to me about her, I never get offended by it,” she said enthusiastically.