After Gayle King opened up about catching her ex-husband cheating on her with her friend, he issued an apology for his infidelity during their marriage.
In a statement shared with TMZ, William Bumpus, who was married to King from 1982 to 1993, apologized for the pain he caused his ex-wife.
“My deepest apologies to Gayle, to our daughter Kirby and her husband, Virgil, to our son William and his wife, Elise, and to our three grandchildren, for the pain I caused decades ago,” said Bumpus, who shares a daughter, Kirby, and a son, William Bumpus Jr., with King. “Those actions were mine. I have long owned them—including publicly in my own words in 2016, which still stand.”
He added that he believes his ex “has every right to share what was a painful chapter that changed the trajectory of our marriage and our family nearly forty years,” referring to her recent interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast.
“What I will say is this: I remain endlessly grateful to Gayle,” he continued. “She gave me two of the greatest gifts of my life—our daughter Kirby and our son William. It was Gayle who encouraged and supported me through getting my Yale Law degree. And it was Gayle who chose, with me, to co-parent successfully from the very beginning—a testament to our shared commitment to our children above all else, and now our grandchildren. The love and camaraderie we forged in that work have carried us all these years.”
He said that they remain “in a good place,” and she even wished a happy birthday to his 16-year-old daughter, Poet. “As a private person by nature, I will admit that during our marriage I did not fully appreciate Gayle’s public life—I wanted ours to be more private, and that was something I wrestled with, and no reflection on her true talent and abilities,” he added. “I am proud to have had a front-row seat to Gayle’s remarkable success, and I remain a genuine admirer and fan.”
In the interview in question, King told Alex Cooper that she caught Bumpus cheating on her in 1990 after she returned home when her flight was canceled. When she entered the house, she noticed the alarm was on.
“He comes flying out of the room. He's got a towel on and he goes, ‘You can't come in,'“ King recalled, adding that her response was, “‘What do you mean I can't come in? What are you talking about?’”
She later found her then-friend “cowering behind the door” in a bath towel.
“I said, ‘I can't believe that you are here and you are doing this,'“ King added. “I even said, ‘I thought we were friends.' I sounded so pitiful.”
Because the alarm was on in the house, the police also arrived, and when they noticed her, they asked for her autograph. After the incident, she attempted marriage counseling with Bumpus, and they tried to reconcile. But when she found him cheating again, they finalized their divorce in 1993.
