Gayle King Recalls Shocking Story of Discovering Her Ex-Husband’s Affair

Gayle King revisited one of the worst memories of her life on the latest episode of Alex Cooper‘s Call Her Daddy podcast.

During the podcast episode, which dropped on Wednesday, May 27, Cooper asked King about the time she discovered her ex-husband, William Bumpus, was having an affair with one of her friends. King and Bumpus were married from 1982 to 1993 and share two kids — daughter Kirby and son William.

The CBS Mornings host recalled rushing to catch a flight home from Washington, D.C., so she didn’t have time to call Bumpus to let him know she was coming home early. Upon arriving home, she found it “strange” that he had turned on the house’s alarm system.

“Next thing I know, he comes flying out of the room, and he’s got a towel on. He goes, ‘You can’t come in.’ [I’m like,] ‘What do you mean I can’t come in? What are you talking about?” she shared. “He goes, ‘You can’t come in. Someone’s here.’ I go, ‘Someone like who? There’s nobody here.’”

Not believing him, King proceeded to search the house and ultimately discovered her friend “cowering behind the door, in my towel.” She told Cooper, “I said, ‘I can’t believe that you are here and that you are doing this. I can’t believe that you are doing this.’… I even said, ‘I thought we were friends.’ I sounded so pitiful.”

King went on to note that the police arrived shortly after, as she hadn’t turned off the alarm system in time. “[They said,] ‘Hey, it’s Gayle King. Are you OK?’ I go, ‘Yeah. I was coming in. I didn’t set off the alarm in time. I’m so sorry.’ And they said, ‘Could I get your autograph?’ I’m just thinking, ‘Yeah, sure,’” she stated. “I wanted to say, ‘Could you take out the trash?’ But I didn’t. I didn’t want them to know because it’s a type of thing that they screw up, but you’re thinking, ‘I don’t want anybody to know when I haven’t done anything wrong.’ I just wanted to get them in and out as quickly as possible. That was not a good night.”

King said she was able to stay composed in the moment because her two young kids were present and because she wanted to keep the situation on the down-low. Following her discovery, King said Bumpus took the woman to a train station for her husband to pick her up, as he thought she was away at a conference. King said she was initially hesitant to call the friend’s husband, but was encouraged to do so by Oprah Winfrey. However, the phone call did not go the way she expected.

“He said, ‘She told me you would be calling. 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.’ Masterful, isn’t that masterful?” she told a shocked Cooper. “He said to me, ‘You are delusional and out of touch with reality, and I suggest you get some help.’”

King didn’t hold back when replying to his comments. “I said, ‘OK, you think I should get some help? Does your wife have a pink satin pajama top? Does she have some green mint panties that go with that? By the way, Richard, there are semen stains in my bed. So, am I delusional and out of touch with reality?’” she stated. “And then, I said, ‘Go f**k yourself,’ and I hung up the telephone.”

King told Cooper that if not for her and Bumpus’ kids, it would have been “game over” at the time. “But we went to counseling, tried to work it out, actually got divorced, and got back together. We actually got divorced and got back together,” she said. “And then I realized, he hadn’t really changed, but I was turning into such a shrew. I would be out in the garage feeling the hood of the car to see if it was warm. I was going through his phone. And I thought, ‘I don’t want to live like this.’ Only to find out, he was cheating again. He was cheating again.”

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