Outside the Beltway

Oprah Says She, Friend Gayle King Not Gay

James Joyner · Monday, July 17, 2006 · 4 comments

Oprah Winfrey says she is not gay and neither is her lifelong friend Gayle King. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Oprah Winfrey and her friend Gayle King want to be clear: they’re not gay. In the August issue of O, the Oprah Magazine, the talk-show host explains that some people misunderstand her close friendship with King. “I understand why people think we’re gay,” she says. “There isn’t a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it — how can you be this close without it being sexual?” In a long article, Winfrey, 52, and King converse about their 30 years of friendship and “four-times-a-day phone calls.” King, who hosted “The Gayle King Show” in 1997, is an editor of O, the Oprah Magazine.

The two friends say they would have no problem telling the public if they were in a sexual relationship. “The truth is, if we were gay, we would tell you, because there’s nothing wrong with being gay,” says King.

Wasn’t there a Seinfeld episode about this?

Seriously, while I still have enough Southern in me to understand why people might care about whether a presidential candidate or even a professional athlete is gay, I can’t figure out why anyone would care who a daytime talk show host is having sex with. Granted that I’ve probably watched her show a total of four or five times, ever, it has never occured to me that she was gay.