Gayle King detailed the devastating moment she walked in on her ex-husband cheating on her with a good friend.
“I came home and caught him,” the journalist said of ex William Bumpus, to whom she was married from 1982-1993, while on Wednesday’s episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
She told the other woman, who was in a towel, “‘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!’ It sounded so pitiful.”
To make matters worse, King accidentally triggered their home alarm system when she got there.
The cops who arrived on scene asked for the anchor’s autograph after recognizing her from the local news.
“I wanted to say, ‘Could you take out the trash?’ But I didn’t,” King, 71, recounted to host Alex Cooper, adding that she didn’t want the police to know what was happening. “I just wanted to get them in and out as quickly as possible.”
For King, the most important part was to protect her children — daughter Kirby, now 40, and son Will, now 39.
Despite wanting to keep the attorney’s affair under wraps, the mom of two thought about calling her friend’s husband.
Bumpus begged her not to, claiming that the woman and her husband had a good marriage.
He eventually took the other woman to the train station, leaving King to ring her best friend, Oprah Winfrey.
The talk show host, 72, had some sound advice for her long time pal.
King shared: “She said, ‘Well, call her husband.’ I go, ‘You think I should call?’ [She said], ‘Yes. Call.’”
The woman’s husband didn’t believe anything happened between his wife and Bumpus.
“I said, ‘OK. You think I should get some help? Does your wife have a pink satin pajama top? Does she have some green mint panties that go with that? And, oh, by the way … there are semen stains in my bed. So am I delusional and out of touch with reality?’”
After telling the gentleman to go “f–k himself,” King hung up the phone.
The news reporter was proud of herself, but noted that it did take “over two hours” before Winfrey had her convinced to call.
The former couple gave their relationship another shot after the cheating scandal, but Bumpus, ended up straying again, leading the pair to call it quits for good.
The author first spoke out about the incident in 2016, which led her ex-husband to apologize for his philandering ways.
Bumpus’s rep told Page Six in a statement at the time: “I have been haunted with this life altering choice. Though I have dealt with this privately . . . I publicly apologize for the major transgression that dramatically changed all of our lives.”
He added, “I have nothing but the utmost respect for Gayle and how she handled herself with grace.”
While the exes are now on good terms, King couldn’t help but poke fun at Bumpus, stating, “I just saw him yesterday because [it was] my grandchild’s christening. I just saw him. He ain’t looking so good. Nope.”
