Gayle King is sharing that she once urged Oprah Winfrey to address long-running rumors that they were "secretly gay" and in a relationship.
In a new episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, host Alex Cooper noted that public speculation has followed King and Winfrey for years and asked how it has felt for King to deal with the headlines and rumors.
“Well, l'd tell you this: It used to really bother me,” said King, 71, near the 23-minute mark in the video below. “I was recently divorced, and the National Enquirer did a story [claiming] that the reason for the divorce—because ‘they're secretly gay.’”
She continued, “If we were gay, we would tell you, because, believe me, there's nothing wrong with it. It’s just I prefer a man. So we would tell you. And then I would say to her, ‘You've got to say something on your show. Because it's hard enough for me to get a date on a Saturday night, and now people think I'm a lesbian. You've got to say something.’”
The CBS Mornings co-host recalled that Winfrey pushed back, insisting they should simply leave the rumor “alone.”
“The truth is, I don't care," she continued. “I've now gotten to the point in my life that very few things get to me because, you know, when you go on social media—it is an accelerator on hate. As long as I feel good about what I'm doing … otherwise, you'll drive yourself nuts.”
The conversation then shifted into how and when public figures should respond to rumors at all.
“Sometimes when the noise gets too much, I feel, at least let me say my piece,” King explained. “There have been news stories and they say, ‘TMZ is out front. Do you want to go out the back door?’ I go, ‘No, I don't. I don't want to look like I'm some criminal with my thing over my head.’
“Sometimes you can just say, ‘You know what? I don't want to talk about that,’ or ‘I don't have anything to say,’ or ‘Good to see you.’ But I don't want to look like I'm running from something when I know I haven't done anything wrong."
