How Did Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King Meet? Inside Their 50-Year Friendship

Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King's friendship has stood the test of time.

Long before they became two of the most successful figures in media, Winfrey and King were young women just working their way up the ranks. They first crossed paths in 1976, when they were employed at Baltimore's WJZ station. At the time, Winfrey was working as an anchor, while King was a production assistant.

Although they were working in different departments, the two forged an instant connection.

In the August 2006 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, both Winfrey and King opened up about the beginning of their friendship.

"We became friends that first night because for the first time, I met somebody who I felt was like me," said King. "I'd never met anybody like that. Certainly not another Black girl. I grew up in an all-white community."

"It's that whole being-the-odd-girl-out thing—we didn't fit in to everybody else's perception of what it's like to be a Black girl," Winfrey added, to which King responded, "But we still had a very strong sense of being Black and were very proud of being Black. So to meet another Black girl like that was, wow!"

The Oprah Winfrey Show host also gushed about her best friend in the August 2001 issue of her magazine, saying King "is a friend [she] can count on."

"I was a news anchor at a station in Baltimore, she was a production assistant—each of us from groups that rarely interacted and certainly weren't friendly," Winfrey continued. "From the day we met, Gayle made it known how proud she was that I had the exalted position of anchorwoman and how excited she was to be part of a team I was on. It has been that way ever since."

Winfrey and King's connection grew stronger when a heavy snowstorm hit Baltimore in 1976.

"Gayle couldn't get home so I invited her to stay at my place," said the Queen of All Media. "Her biggest concern? Underwear. She was determined to drive 40 miles through a snowstorm to get to Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she lived with her mom, in order to have clean panties. 'I have lots of clean underwear,' I told her. 'You can use mine, or we can go buy you some.'"

"Once I finally convinced her to come home with me, we stayed up the whole night talking. And with the exception of a few times during vacations spent out of the country, Gayle and I have talked every day since," Winfrey added in the August 2001 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.

In an April 2022 interview with People, the National Women's Hall of Fame inductee shared she and King ended up talking "all night long" during the heavy snowstorm and "have literally been friends ever since."

In the years after their friendship began, the media icons have constantly supported each other's endeavors.

In 1986, the CBS Mornings co-host made her first appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. They also hit the road for a cross-country adventure in 2006 and launched The OG Chronicles in 2019.

When Winfrey interviewed King for the first time during the last leg of her WW 2020 Vision Tour, the CBS News star told her pal she trusts her "even if [she disagrees] with [Winfrey.]."

"I have this joke with Oprah where people say, I found my best friend with my husband [William Bumpus]," King shared. "I say to Oprah, 'If you ever walked in and caught me with Stedman [Graham Winfrey's partner], you should not be mad, you should take me to the mental institution. Don't be mad, I need help!' But I mean, we're honest with each other and trust each other and actually are very like-minded."

When King found out Bumpus was cheating on her with one of her friends in 1990, she immediately called Winfrey to share the heartbreaking discovery.

"I called Oprah. Oprah goes, 'Wait, let me get this straight. He left you there alone and went with her?'" King shared on the May 27 episode of the "Call Her Daddy" podcast.

"'You don't even know how bad this is,'" Winfrey reportedly told King, who "could not hear" the comment at the time.

They reportedly spoke on the phone for two hours, and Winfrey was the only person King talked about her husband's affair.

The media proprietor told King to call the other woman's husband and tell the news to him. He initially dismissed King's accusation until she described intimate details that left little room for doubt.

King and Bumpus ultimately divorced in 1993 after 11 years of marriage.

Winfrey and King's friendship is so tight-knit that it has long been the subject of romance rumors.

Amid speculation they were a couple, King shared during an appearance on Melinda French Gates' Moments That Make Us interview series, "If we were g--, we'd tell you!"

"I used to say, 'Oprah, you gotta do a show on this, because it's hard enough for me to get a date on Saturday night with people thinking we're g--,'" she continued.

"For years, people used to say we were g--, and listen, we were up against that forever. And people still may think it," Winfrey pointed out. "[People] aren't used to seeing women with this kind of truth bond."

During her "Call Her Daddy" podcast appearance, King admitted the buzz "used to really bother" her.

"I was recently divorced, and there was — The National Enquirer did a story about, that's the reason for the divorce, because they're secretly g--. Number one, if we were g--, we would tell you because, believe me, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just, I prefer a man," she explained.

While King repeatedly urged Winfrey to publicly shut down the romance rumors, the Harpo Productions founder preferred to ignore the speculation.

"So it used to really bother me," she admitted. "And now, even today, there's still people that say, 'Well, you know, the truth is...' I don't care. I've now gotten to the point in my life that very few things get to me."