The CBS Mornings host Gayle King, 71, recently sat down for a revealing interview where she described the exact moment she found her then-husband William Bumpus cheating with one of her close friends inside their own home. The conversation has brought the couple’s 1990s divorce back into the spotlight, along with a new apology from Bumpus.
For decades, King kept the specific details of her marriage breakdown mostly private. But during her appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast on May 27, 2026, she shared a full account of the betrayal that ended her 11-year marriage. The story quickly spread across social media, leading her former husband to issue a public statement just hours later.
The Night Gayle King Caught Her Husband
King explained that she was working as a news anchor in Connecticut at the time. She had taken a trip to Washington, D.C., but her flight got canceled. She decided to come home early with her two young children, Kirby and William Bumpus Jr. , who were toddlers then.
When she arrived, she noticed something was off immediately. Her husband had set the house alarm while he was inside, which she found strange. As she walked toward the bedroom, Bumpus ran out wearing only a towel and tried to block her way.
“He comes flying out of the room, and he’s got a towel on, and he goes, ‘You can’t come in!’” King recalled. “I said, ‘What do you mean I can’t come in? What are you talking about?’”
She did not believe his excuses and started searching the house. That is when she found her friend hiding behind a door, wearing King’s own bath towel. The woman was also married and had children of her own.
King admitted she felt “pitiful” when she confronted her. “I said, ‘I can’t believe that you are here and that you are doing this. I thought we were friends,’” she remembered.
Police Arrive and Oprah Gets Involved
The situation got even more chaotic when the home alarm accidentally triggered. Police officers arrived at the house while King was still dealing with the shock of finding her husband and friend together. The officers recognized King from television and even asked for her autograph.
“I wanted to say, ‘Could you take out the trash?’ But I didn’t,” King joked about the awkward moment.
After the police left, King’s priority was protecting her children from seeing what was happening. She had the nanny take the kids out of the house. Then she called her best friend, Oprah Winfrey.
Winfrey immediately understood the depth of the betrayal. “Oh girl, you don’t even know how bad this is,” Winfrey told her. Winfrey pushed King to call the other woman’s husband and tell him the truth, even though Bumpus begged her not to.
When King finally made the call, the husband accused her of being “delusional” and suggested she get help. King responded by describing exactly what she found in her bed, including the other woman’s pink pajamas and other evidence. She told him directly to go f*** himself before hanging up.
William Bumpus Issues Public Apology
Following the podcast’s release, William Bumpus broke his silence. He provided a statement to TMZ on May 27, 2026, apologizing for the pain he caused nearly 40 years ago.
“My deepest apologies to Gayle, to our daughter Kirby and her husband, Virgil, to our son William and his wife, Elise, and to our three grandchildren, for the pain I caused decades ago. Those actions were mine.”
Bumpus acknowledged that he has publicly apologized before, back in 2016, and that his words still stand. He also noted that he struggled with King’s public fame during their marriage because he is a private person by nature.
He praised King for being a great co-parent and for supporting him through law school at Yale. “She gave me two of the greatest gifts of my life — our daughter Kirby and our son William,” his statement read.
Bumpus also revealed that he and King remain on good terms today. He mentioned that King recently sent birthday wishes to his teenage daughter, Poet, who is 16 years old from another relationship. “We remain in a good place,” he said.
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Where They Stand Today
King and William Bumpus were married from 1982 until their divorce in 1993. After the cheating incident in 1990, they tried marriage counseling and even attempted to reconcile. But the relationship fell apart for good when King discovered Bumpus had cheated again.
Despite the painful history, both have built a working relationship focused on their two children and three grandchildren. King has not remarried since the divorce, though she told the podcast she is open to meeting someone new.
On the podcast, King kept her sense of humor about the whole situation. She mentioned seeing Bumpus recently at a family event and joked that “he ain’t looking so good,” though she added that his new girlfriend seems “very nice and lovely.”
The 2026 interview marks the first time King has shared the full, unfiltered story in such detail. She previously alluded to the incident in a 2016 Vanity Fair interview, where she remembered the exact date of the betrayal: June 24, 1990, at 9:16 p.m.
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