She started her career as a production assistant in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, where she went on the air. She moved first to Kansas City, Missouri and then on to Hartford, Connecticut in 1981. For a brief time before it was cancelled, she co hosted an NBC daytime talk show with Maury Povich called Cover to Cover. When Gayle was offered her own syndicated talk show “The Gayle King Show”, she says that Oprah encouraged the move and in fact at one time offered her the opportunity to join Harpo Productions in Chicago. Gayle turned Oprah’s offer down because she wanted to stay in Hartford where her children could see their father regularly.

She is the divorced mother of two children. Her daughter, Kirby, 15, and her son, William, 14, call Oprah Auntie O. There were rumors that their close relationships and  generous gifts Oprah gave to the family contributed to Gayle’s divorce from Yale-educated lawyer Bill Bumpus after 13 years of marriage. 

Stedman Graham has no worries about Gayle breaking up his relationship with Oprah. When he appeared on Gayle’s talk show, he told her: “I think it’s therapeutic for Oprah to have someone she can talk to and tell everything about her day and everything about her week, and you know, you are that person; you are that special person [that she never has the] feeling she has to hold something back.”  

Oprah once explained how their friendship began: 

“I was an anchorwoman, and Gayle was a production assistant. One night [in 1976], there was a terrible snowstorm, so I invited Gayle, who was then living about 35 miles away, to stay at my house. She did – and we sat up and talked until dawn! Ever since then, we talk every day, sometimes three or four times.” 

Oprah explains why she and Gayle have remained friends for more than 20 years.: 

“In spite of all the things that have happened to me, we laugh every night about on thing or another. She absolutely keeps me grounded.”  

Does Gayle ever feel she is in Oprah’s shadow?