Gayle King Relives The Heartbreaking Moment She Caught Her Husband Cheating With Her Friend!

Gayle King is looking back on the moment she found out about her now ex-husband’s affair!

As you may know, the 71-year-old journalist got married to William G. Bumpus in 1982 and had two kids together. Sadly, their relationship came to an end in 1993 after she caught him cheating on her! And it wasn’t with a stranger! No, he was hooking up with her married friend! OMG!

While on Call Her Daddy this week, Gayle shared that she grew suspicious of her pal and husband when they all played tennis together:

“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. The hair stood up on the back of my neck and I thought, ‘Why am I feeling that way?’ It was weird.”

When the CBS Mornings anchor confronted William, he allegedly attempted to “gaslight” her. She eventually thought she was “overreacting” about the whole thing, but it turns out her gut was right!

In June 1990, Gayle came home after her flight was cancelled unexpectedly. She immediately knew something was off when the alarm was set — something William never did! He also told her she couldn’t come inside the house:

“The alarm was set, which I thought, ‘That’s strange, because you’re in here by yourself.’ 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.”

Knowing he had been caught, William came clean and told her that “there’s somebody in” the home. Oof. According to Gayle, she was “so oblivious” to what was happening that she started “searching the house” to figure out what he meant. She then found a woman hiding in a bath towel. And to twist the knife further into her back? The woman was her friend! Gayle shared:

“I didn’t believe him. I get down and there they are — or there she is cowering behind the door in my towel. It was a nice bath sheet.”

What a betrayal! Ugh! While confronting the cheaters, Gayle remembered sounding “so pitiful”:

“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.’ And I even said, ‘I thought we were friends. I thought we were friends.’”

Heartbreaking! We can’t imagine how much pain she had been in that moment. Their two kids were also home at the time. Booooo!!!

Thankfully, though, they were outside with the nanny. And knowing that helped keep Gayle as calm as possible in the moment:

“I was thinking, ‘The kids are here, I don’t want anybody to know.’ That was my main thought, ‘I don’t want anybody to know.’ That would not happen to me today. I kept thinking, ‘I don’t want it to be a scene,’ because they’re little, they know this person. My main thing was how do I — which is what I do about most things — how do I handle this situation in this moment.”

And the situation escalated because the police showed up! Gayle set off the alarm at the house when she came home and never shut it off in time, so the cops came back to make sure everything was alright! OMG! Talk about having one of the worst days! To make things worse? Gayle then said William drove the other woman to the train station so she could get back to her own husband! Umm.. He didn’t even stay behind to apologize to his wife, whom he betrayed?! WTF!

And following a two-hour rant session with Oprah, Gayle ended up calling the friend’s husband about what happened. He didn’t believe her, though! He said she “drew the wrong conclusion” about what she saw! Oh, dude! As Wendy Williams once said, “denial is not just a river in Egypt!”

Despite having a sneaking suspicion before, Gayle shared that she truly had no clue they were having an affair:

“I was happy. You know how they say the wife always knows? I swear to God I did not. I did not. 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.”

Thank goodness William is out of her life now! There’s no coming back from cheating with your wife’s bestie! Watch Gayle relive the affair (below):