Gayle King is sharing intimate details about the shocking moment that led to the demise of her marriage to ex-husband William Bumpus. The CBS journalist made an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast Wednesday, where she recalled catching Bumpus with another woman — who happened to be one of her close friends, and was also married — “buck naked” together at their Connecticut home in 1990.
The Discovery
“You know how they say the wife always knows? I swear to God, I did not,” King told host Alex Cooper. “I did not. And people say, ‘But of course you knew.’ No, I really didn’t. Now it’s not like we hadn’t had arguments or anything, but I didn’t think it was in such disrepair that he was boinking around ... I did not think that.”
A news anchor at WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut, at the time, King made the shocking discovery after returning from a trip to Washington, D.C., earlier than expected. She immediately knew something was awry when she found that Bumpus had set the house alarm while he was home. “Next thing I know, he comes flying out of the room, and he’s got a towel on, and he goes, ‘You can’t come in!’ ... I was so oblivious,” she recalled.
Confrontation and Aftermath
After searching the house, she found her friend “cowering behind the door, in my towel.” “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,’ she added. “I even said, ‘I thought we were friends.’ I sounded so pitiful.”
As if things couldn’t get any worse after finding her husband and her pal together, King forgot to reset her house alarm after unexpectedly setting it off earlier, which meant the police arrived at her home amid the tumult. “I wanted to say, ‘Could you take out the trash?’ But I didn’t,” she quipped.
Marriage and Family
King and Bumpus, a lawyer who served as Connecticut’s assistant attorney general, were married from 1982 to 1993. The former couple share two adult children, Kirby Bumpus, 40, and William Bumpus Jr., 39. Though King’s Call Her Daddy interview appears to be the first time she’s spoken in such detail about her ex-husband’s affair, she’s alluded to it in past interviews, most notably in 2016.
“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 told Vanity Fair, when asked to name a living person she despises.
Public Apology
Immediately after King’s Vanity Fair chat was published, Bumpus issued a statement to the New York Post’s Page Six apologizing for his actions. “I have been haunted with this life altering choice,” he told the outlet. “Though I have dealt with this privately … I publicly apologize for the major transgression that dramatically changed all of our lives.” He went on to note: “I have nothing but the utmost respect for Gayle and how she handled herself with grace. Despite the situation, she kept our children, as well as my relationship and involvement with them, as a clear priority.”
Life After Divorce
Though King has not remarried in the 33 years since her split from Bumpus, she told Cooper she’s open to meeting “somebody that thinks you’re fun to hang out with,” even if another marriage isn’t in her future. As for her ideal partner, she said, “I want somebody who can pick me up and carry me across the room.”
