Gayle King Recalls the Exact Moment She Caught Ex Cheatin

Gayle King Still Remembers the Exact Time She Caught Him Cheating

Some things you just never forget. And for Gayle King, one of those things is June 24, 1990, at 9:16 p.m.

Gayle King

That is the exact date and time the veteran CBS journalist walked into her own home and found her then-husband William Bumpus with another woman. Not just any woman either — someone she knew. And decades later, Gayle is still talking about it, because honestly, how could you not?

The story resurfaced recently when Gayle sat down for a CBS Mornings interview connected to Oprah Winfrey's dog-themed miniseries "Life is Better with Dogs," where she opened up about a different but equally telling grievance against her ex — the fact that he made her give away her dog because he did not like animals.

"I love that you are calling this series 'Life is Better with Dogs,'" Gayle told entrepreneur and Farmer's Dog CEO Jonathan Regev during the segment, "because my ex-husband didn't like dogs. As a matter of fact, I had to get rid of my dog — which should have been a clue."

CBS's Major Garrett, serving as guest co-host that day, joked that the whole thing was starting to feel like a therapy session. He was not entirely wrong.

She Came Home a Day Early and Found Everything

The full story of how Gayle discovered the affair has come out in pieces over the years, but she and Oprah actually told it together at one of Oprah's 2020 Vision Tour stops, and that version is something else entirely.

Gayle explained that she had been traveling with her children when her flight got canceled. The airline offered her an earlier option, so she grabbed the kids, rushed to the airport, and came home a full day ahead of schedule — no warning, no phone call, because this was 1990 and cell phones were not part of everyday life yet.

She walked through her own front door. And there it was.

Oprah, sitting beside her at the tour stop, said she had to prepare for the interview because she wanted to find something she did not already know about the story. There was not much left.

"It's called infidelity," Gayle said simply. "Caught in your home, never good."

She Remembers Every Detail — and Pretends She Doesn't

The most quoted version of this story came from a Vanity Fair questionnaire where Gayle was asked to name a living person she most despises. Her answer was so perfectly Gayle King it practically became its own meme.

According to Vanity Fair, she replied: "Despise is a strong word. I'm not a huge fan of the woman I caught naked with my now ex-husband on June 24, 1990, at 9:16 p.m. — but I don't remember the details."

She remembered every single detail. That was the joke. And it landed perfectly.

Eleven Years of Marriage, One Very Bad Night

Gayle and William Bumpus had been married since 1982. They had two kids together — daughter Kirby and son William Jr. — and by all outward appearances, they had built something solid. Eleven years is not nothing. But the marriage fell apart after the affair, and by 1993 the divorce was final.

William, who worked as a prosecutor in Connecticut, did not speak publicly about it for years. Then in 2016, he released a statement through Page Six that read: "I publicly apologize for the major transgression that dramatically changed all of our lives."

Better late than never, perhaps. But that is not really the point.

She Has Moved On — Mostly

To her credit, Gayle has never let the betrayal define her publicly. When she appeared on her own radio show with Will Smith as a guest back in 2006, she was candid but clear-eyed about where she stood.

"I was married to a cheater," she told Smith. "I went to marital counseling. I have been divorced since 1993, so I'm all healed and everything. I have worked it out. I'm not bitter. I'm OK. I'm really OK."

Whether she was fully OK or performing OK the way only a seasoned television host can — that is a question only Gayle knows the answer to. But the dog comment on CBS Mornings suggests some corners of that marriage still sting, even now.

She also joked recently, after landing on the cover of Sports Illustrated, that she was going to mail a copy directly to her ex-husband. "I wonder what my ex-husband is saying. I'm gonna send him a copy," she laughed.

Thirty-plus years later, William Bumpus is still involuntarily participating in Gayle King's content. And honestly, that feels about right.

From FTE News