Gayle King is a known African American TV star, reporter and a TV host who became widely known as Oprah Winfrey’s best friend. She is also a known news anchor and a journalist who was very well liked by her co-workers. They all find her very interesting and also fun to be around.
Gayle is one of the editors in chief of „The Oprah Magazine“ and this job is full-time.
Early years
She was born as Gayle King on December 28, 1954 in a town of Chevy Chase in Maryland, United States. It is settled on the northwest Washington border.
She was born in a middle class family: with a father who was an engineer and a mother who stayed home to take care of the kids. Gayle has three sisters and she is the oldest one of them. Her sisters often accused her of being bossy.
Her parents are named Scott King and Peggy King. Gayle was on good terms with both of her parents, especially mother who was home and always there for her.
Her father was hired to work in Turkey for several years, so Gayle had spent a part of her childhood there. She was a student in the American school there. When she speaks about Turkey she emphasizes the big difference of Turkey and the United States.
After his job was finished, the family has returned back home to Maryland. It was before she finished highschool and before she finished her schooling at the Universitry of Maryland, where she graduated in 1976.
She gained two degrees in sociology and in psychology. She was always an excellent student, focused on work and her great ambitions.
Career development
She always liked psychology and listening to other people trying to give advice so she thought she would be great at it. She wanted to make a career in psychology or to go to law school to put away criminals. She stated that she could never defend criminals.
But after she received an entry-level position at a TV station during college, everything has changed for her. So she often laughs that she became a journalist by accident.
She liked her job as a journalist very much because it was alway busy at her workplace and she liked the rush.
After finishing college, she had moved to Kansas City in Missouri because she was offered a job as a reporter at WDAF-TV. She thought that it will help her to settle down for a while.
In 1981 she relocated to Hartford in Conneticut where she was hired as a news anchor in another tv station, this time WFSB. She worked at the same workplace for 18 years. She has great memories from there, and she is still in contact with her friends from there.
Ten years later, in 1991, Gayle was a co-host on a talk show on NBC channel titled „Cover to Cover“. The show was canceled after just two months so Gayle was free for new opportunities again. She was sad because she liked the show and she wanted to resch a bigger audience.
In 1997, she tried herself in her own show called „The Gayle King Show“ but it was soon cancelled. The show had extremely low ratings so it was no wonder that the producers decided to cancel it.
This was a blow in the head for her, especially because she was sure that the producers didn’t give her enough time to make the show running.
In 1976, Gayle and Oprah met each other and became very good friends. This friendship was something that made Gayle very popular. They have met by accident, working together.
Gayle’s best male friend is Howard Stern, a known American personality and radio host. Although they have different views on many things, the two of them have the rare sincere friendship.
In 1999, she has joined „The Oprah Magazine“ as an editor. She was a special correspondent both for Oprah’s show and for another popular show named „Good Morning America“.
Gayle and Oprah met at Baltimore TV Station where they both worked, before they were famous. Oprah was hired to be news anchor and Gayle worked as a production assistant.
As Oprah once described in her show, their friendship started „one stormy night, when Oprah offered Gayle to stay overnight at her place to avoid driving on such bad weather“. It is a pretty cool story and they always tell it to people.
Although, some time later, Gayle relocated to Kansas City and Oprah went to Chicago, both of them continued to keep their friendship alive.
In 2012, Gayle became a co-anchor on „This Morning“ CBS News show, where she still works.
Gayle works out very often and has a great figure, unlike her friend Oprah who always battles with her weight. But Gayle often battled with weight before. This is something that makes her very insecure in her day to day life and therefore she almost developed body dysmorphia.
Her net worth is considered to be around $20 million. This is a pretty big achievment for a woman of colour, since the world is usually unfair to them.
Gayle interviewed a lot of important politicians, celebrities and leaders in her show. Michelle Obama and Taylor Swift are just two of them.
Her interview with 50 Cent gained a lot of attention since he liked Gayle very much and Tweeted about her later on. This brought her attention since the world of music was suddenly interested in what she had to say and they wanted to know who is the woman that 50 Cent talks about.
In 2011, she started hosting her show again. It is still called „The Gayle King Show“ and it is aired on CBS. She is hapoy because of it, knowing that it is great to do what she always wanted.
Gayle published a self-help book in spring 2018. It is named „Note to self: Inspiring Words from Inspiring People“. In this book, Gayle talked through her psychology knowledge she had from college.
She was very happy for the good reviews of the book and that the book gained attention. Oprah advertised it too, which was a great thing for Gayle.
Personal life
Gayle was married to an attorney named William ill Bumpus. They got married in 1982 and decided to have a divorce in 1993. She suffered much after divorce and her life was very tough during that period.
Gayle was very much in love with William and always talked about him to Oprah. This is something that Oprah used to talk about to her and always warned her that she must be careful.
Gayle has two children from that marriage: a son named William Bumpus Jr. (named after his father) and a daughter Kirby Bumpus. She loves them a lot and wants to give them the best future possible.
Her daughter Kirby was born on May 12, 1986. In 2016, her daughter had became a staff member in White House which made Gayle very proud of her daughter. Kirby was an excellent student in college.
Gayle has divorced her husband because he was cheating her. She had found about it in an ugly way: she caught her husband naked with another woman in June 1990.
Her husband apologized to her in public and became a better father and a bigger support to Gayle.
It was immidietaly seen that he regrets his actions but Gayle would never forgive such a treason. She and her friend Oprah always talked about how important it is for a woman to be consistent with her thoughts.
They are on good terms today and he sometimes follows her on the premiers or some other social events. He is also involved in their children’s lives.
In October 2018, she has revealed her tattoo. She has a tattoo of 50 cent on her arm. Their friendship is very funny and she claims that 50 Cent is a very interesting person and much more popular amongst young people than it is thought.
It is known that Oprah is godmother to both of Gayle’s children, Kirby and William. Oprah loves them like they were her own children. She gives them gifts and also gives them money when they need it.
Gayle once spoke about the greatest gift Oprah evet gave her: she hired a nanny for her which helped her for years because she didn’t have enough money to afford it herself.
There were rumours that Gayle and Oprah are a gay couple which made Oprah and Gayle often burst in laughter. Oprah often spoke about how if they were gay, that she would first told the press about it.
In 2016, Gayle has posted a photo on her Instagram account. She was celebrating the fact that she has lost almost 20 kgs after joining Weight Watchers in the fall of 2018.
She says that she feels a lot better, eats healthier and train, in order to be in good shape for her grandchildren one day. She also has some people that train her and usually talk to her to make sure she is on the right path.
She documented her weight-loss and diet since the first day she started battling against it with Weight Watchers. It is very inspiring for many people.
It is known that she doesn’t drink coffee which is odd for a journalist but her favorite drink is a white hot chocolate with low-fat milk which can be found at Starbuck’s. She buys it quite often.
Quick summary
Full name: Gayle King
Date of birth: December 28, 1954
Birthplace: Chevy Chase, Maryland, United States
Age: 64
Profession: TV host, journalist, news anchor, reporter, writer
Height: NA
Weight: 68 kgs
Net Worth: $20 million
