“I would say to [Oprah], ‘You’ve got to say something on your show.’ … She said, ‘No, just leave it alone.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s fine for you to say, you have somebody. I don’t.’ So it used to really bother me.”

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The pair met back in the ‘70s and immediately clicked after Oprah invited Gayle to stay at her house for a night when a snowstorm left her stranded.

Gayle then jokingly added, “I used to say to her: ‘You’ve got to do a show on this, because it’s hard enough for me to get a date on Saturday night [without] people thinking we’re gay!’ Because if we were gay, we’d tell you!”

“As long as I feel good about what I'm doing, [and] the people I respect and trust are OK with it…Otherwise, you'll drive yourself nuts. So now I really don't care,” she added.

Gayle and William share two children: Kirby Bumpus and William Bumpus Jr.