On the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Gayle King described the breakdown of her first marriage to attorney William Bumpus, saying she discovered an alleged affair with a friend after returning home early from a trip in the 1980s. King said Bumpus told her she could
Gayle King knew the moment was surreal long before the conversation ended.
On the “Call Her Daddy” podcast Wednesday. May 27. the CBS Mornings host—71—told Alex Cooper that she discovered what she described as an extramarital affair involving her ex-husband. attorney William Bumpus. and a friend. King said the discovery came when she returned home early from a trip. catching the situation in a way she still remembers as disorienting.
King said Bumpus was allegedly caught off guard by her early return and told her she could not enter their bedroom. Moments later, King said she found her friend wearing her towel.
King. who said she and Bumpus shared two children—a daughter. Kirby. and a son. William Bumpus Jr.—added that she had their nanny preoccupy the children while she dealt with what was happening. In her retelling, her immediate thoughts were less about scandal and more about protecting the kids from a scene.
“I was thinking, ‘The kids are here. I don’t want anybody to know.’ That was my main thought,” King told Cooper. She continued that the fear was about how much the children would understand at their age: “And that would not happen to me today. It would be like. ‘Get this [person] and take her [away].’ But you know. I kept thinking. ‘I don’t want it to be a scene because they’re little. They know this person.’”.
After the alleged incident, King said she planned to notify her friend’s husband. She said Bumpus allegedly discouraged her. telling her the couple “had a good marriage.” King recalled telling Bumpus that her friend’s pajama bottoms were in her bed and questioning where he thought she was “right now.”.
King said Bumpus then offered an explanation and. later. an arrangement: she said he purportedly told her friend’s husband was under the impression she was “away at a conference. ” and that he offered to drop her friend off at the train station. King said she worried about the consequences of telling the truth too broadly.
“I’m thinking, ‘Well God, I don’t want to mess up everybody’s life,’” she continued.
In King’s telling, the aftermath still lingered even after reconciliation. She said she and Bumpus divorced and later briefly reconciled, but she concluded “he hadn’t really changed.”
The story of the phone call afterward—King says it was pushed by Oprah Winfrey—also stands out as a pivot point. King said she did not tell her mother and kept the situation private from her sisters, saying: “I got three sisters. Didn’t tell them. The only person I told was Oprah.”
She described Winfrey as a steady support during the emotional aftermath, and said that after a few hours, Winfrey encouraged her to call her friend’s husband. King said her call did not go the way she hoped.
“I call him, and you know what he said? He said, ‘She told me you would be calling,’” King recalled. “‘She said that you came home early, unexpected, and you drew the wrong conclusion. And she told me you would call and say that you thought they were having an affair.’”
King said her friend’s husband allegedly told her she was “delusional and out of touch with reality” for claiming she was having an affair with Bumpus. She said she ultimately hung up after frustration set in.
Winfrey, King said, responded with urgency. She recalled Winfrey telling her, “‘You don’t even realize how bad this is,’” and saying: “‘Gayle, your head has been blown off. You need to get on a plane, and you need to come here.’”
King said Winfrey later offered to send her flight tickets—both for her and her children—to relocate to Chicago, where Winfrey filmed “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
Taken together, King’s account moves through the same tightening circle: a homecoming that triggers immediate confusion, a refusal that kept her from confronting what she saw directly, and then a second, harsher confrontation when she called the husband she believed deserved to know.
When the personal story turned to what comes next. King told Cooper she is ready for love. but not chasing marriage. “I used to think I want to get married again. Now, I’m not even thinking that,” she said on “Call Her Daddy.” She added, “I have a great life. There’s no. ‘Don’t Cry for Me. Argentina.’ … But I do think it would be nice to meet somebody that thinks you’re fun to hang out with.”.
King said her “dream man” includes size and strength—“I like big, Alex, in every way − big hands, big chest, big muscles, big feet”—and she said she also wouldn’t mind if he carried a little softness herself: “’Cause I have a tummy. … I want somebody who can pick me up and carry me across the room.”
She also said she would be open to dating someone younger than her. Then she joked about recently seeing Tom Brady: “I just saw Tom Brady. I had to stop myself from going, ‘You are so good-looking,’” she said, adding that she believes men her age “wear hats” and can be “a little boring.”
For King, the thread running through the conversation is clear: the pain of what happened in her first marriage never fully disappeared, but it also didn’t end her life. It shaped it—quietly, and in ways she says she still remembers.
Gayle King William Bumpus CBS Mornings Call Her Daddy Oprah Winfrey affair allegations divorce Chicago relocation