Oprah Winfrey is keeping it real when it comes to her lifelong friendship with Gayle King.
The media mogul and her bestie sat down with Melinda French Gates for her “Moments That Make Us” series and reflected on their solid bond and rumors they’ve heard about themselves.
“I think we’ve shared pretty much everything and I would have to say, it wasn’t even a matter of navigation,” Winfrey said. “You know, for years, people used to say we were gay, and listen, we were up against that forever. And people still may think it.”
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King added, “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 gay.’ Because if we were gay, we would tell you.”
When reflecting on why people would assume they were gay, Winfrey said, "Maybe people aren’t accustomed to seeing women with this kind of truth bond.”
Winfrey, meanwhile, has been with her longterm partner Stedman Graham since 1986.
She continued saying that she thinks her and King’s friendship has worked is because “Gayle is happier, not happy, but happier for me for any kind of success or victory or challenge I get through than I am for myself. And I feel as happy as she does — I can’t be happier than, cannot surpass Gayle. You cannot out-happy her. I am equally as happy for her.”
Winfrey and King met when they were working at the Baltimore-area news station WJZ-TV. The two connected after Winfrey, the anchor at the time, offered King, a then-production assistant, a place to stay during a major snowstorm.
“We bonded because we had very like philosophies about people... we were so in sync about so many different things,” King said, with Winfrey adding, “And philosophies about approaching life and approaching our job because we were both at the same job.”
During their conversation with Gates, Winfrey stressed that they believe people can't be friends “with anybody who has a hint of jealousy about anything that you’re doing — certainly about your success or your being celebrated.”
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