Sunday, July 28, 2024 - Media mogul, Oprah Winfrey and her longtime best friend, Gayle King have shut down the longstanding rumor that they are secretly having a romantic relationship.
The two friends appeared on Melinda French Gates' Moments That Make Us interview series, where they discussed their close bond.
The 70-year-old media mogul, who has been with partner Stedman Graham for over 35 years, said of her closeness with King, 69, : 'I think we've shared pretty much everything and I would have to say, it wasn't even a matter of navigation,' the former daytime TV legend said. 'For years, people used to say we were gay, and listen, we were up against that forever. And people still may think it.'
King quipped that she used to ask Oprah to publicly clarify they were just friends as it was 'hard enough for' her 'to get a date on Saturday night without people thinking they were together.
'If we were gay, we'd tell you!' the mother-of-two assured viewers
On what she thinks sparks gay speculation, Winfrey said it's because people 'aren't used to seeing women with this kind of truth bond.'
'The reason why I think our 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,' the 20-time Emmy winner stated.
She continued: '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 noted that even a 'hint of jealousy about anything' between friends can ruin the relationship.
'I just assumed everybody had a really good friend,' King said of her and Winfrey's friendship. 'I just assumed every woman - maybe not for men - but I just assumed every woman had at least one.'
King also noted that she's not afraid to be real with her BFF.
'In Oprah's life, everybody is always very flattering and is always very agreeable with things that she says,' she explained. 'And sometimes I'll just go, "That's just not true. Your hair does not look good."'
During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live back in 2013, Winfrey denied ever taking 'a dip in the lady pond.'
When asked if she had ever been intimate with a woman before, Winfrey answered: 'No, no I have not. Thank you.'
Three years earlier, she said in an interview with Barbara Walters that she's 'not a lesbian' or 'even kind of a lesbian.'
'Why would you want to hide it? That is not the way I run my life,' she said of her sexuality.
When asked to describe her relationship with King, Winfrey said her pal was 'the mother' she 'never had' and the 'sister everybody would want.'
'She is the friend that everybody deserves,' Winfrey said. 'I don't know a better person.'
King stated in the past that it's 'irritating that anybody still questions' the nature of their relationship.
'I think the most troubling thing that bothers me about it is the fact that we would deny it, and we've both said this many times, implies that there's something wrong with being gay. That people would think that we would be gay and deny it like there's something wrong. I think that's unfair to gay people. I think it's unfair to Stedman [Graham]. I think it's unfair to me and I think it's unfair to her,' King said on Nightline in 2011.
In 2006, the pals set the record straight in an issue of Winfrey’s magazine, O.
'I understand why people think we’re gay, Winfrey admitted. 'There isn’t a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it – how can you be this close without it being sexual?'
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