Gayle King Recalls the Moment She Found Her Husband Cheating With Her Close Friend
Gayle King is looking back on the moment she discovered her husband was cheating on her with a close friend.
King, 71, appeared on the Wednesday, May 27, episode of the "Call Her Daddy" podcast with Alex Cooper and reflected on the moment in 1990 when she returned home after a flight was canceled, only to discover that her then-husband, William G. Bumpus, was having an affair. To make matters worse, the woman was in her home at the time.
"The alarm was set, which I thought, ‘That's strange, because you're in here by yourself,'" King said. "You're a big ass, grown ass man. He never sets the alarm. And next thing I know, he comes flying out of the room and he's got a towel on," King shared.
Her husband told her "there's somebody in" the house, so she started searching to find out who it was, "oblivious" to what he was telling her.
"I didn't believe him," she noted. "I get down and there they are - or there she is cowering behind the door in my towel. It was a nice bath sheet... I said, ‘I can't believe that you are here and that you are doing this.'"
The children were outside with their nanny and clueless about what was happening inside.
"I was thinking, ‘The kids are here, I don't want anybody to know,'" said King. "That was my main thought, ‘I don't want anybody to know.' That would not happen to me today."
Check out King's interview on Call Her Daddy below:
The Warning Signs
When it comes to signs that her marriage was in trouble, King shared that she was "happy."
"You know how they say the wife always knows? I swear to God I did not. I did not," she said. "It's not like we hadn't had arguments or anything, but I didn't think that it was such disrepair that he was boinking around."
However, there was a moment between her then-husband and the woman he cheated with that made her think twice.
"I always say if I was writing a book, the first line in my book would be, ‘Whack,' the sound of a tennis ball. She said, ‘Nice shot, Bill.' The way she said it, there was such an intimacy in her voice," King shared. "The hair stood up on the back of my neck and I thought, ‘Why am I feeling that way?' It was weird."
The couple, who share two children, divorced in 1993.
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This story was originally published May 27, 2026 at 11:56 AM.