The lifelong friends discussed their true relationship status with Melinda French Gates

Oprah Winfrey has finally addressed the enduring rumors regarding her relationship status with fellow broadcaster Gayle King – claiming she understands why some people ‘may think it’.

On Wednesday (July 24), Winfrey, 70, and 69-year-old King appeared on Melinda French Gates’ Moments That Make Us series.

The candid chat saw the pair discussing their experiences with ageing; lessons they’ve learned throughout their lives and the importance of female friendship.

While reflecting on their lifelong bond, Winfrey also had her say on the longstanding rumor that she and the mother-of-two were a couple.

Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King have addressed relationship rumors. (Elyse Jankowski/Variety via Getty Images)

“I think we’ve shared pretty much everything and I would have to say, it wasn’t even a matter of navigation,” she said during the YouTube interview.

“For years, people used to say we were gay, and listen, we were up against that forever. And people still may think it.”

CBS Mornings anchor King agreed and continued: “I used to say to Oprah: ‘You gotta do a show on this because it’s hard enough for me to get a date on Saturday night with people thinking we’re gay’.

“Because if we were gay, we’d tell you!”

Winfrey – who has been in a relationship with her long-term partner Stedman Graham since 1986 – went on to explain that she believes the rumors started as people weren’t used to seeing women share such a close bond.

“One of the things I used to think was that people weren’t accustomed to seeing women with this kind of truth bond,” she stated.

King claimed if she and her friend were gay, they’d ‘tell’ their fans. (Monica Schipper/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

“The reason why I think our friendship has worked is because Gayle is happier, not happy, but happier for me for any kind of success or victory or challenge I get through than I am for myself.

“And I feel as happy as she does – I can’t be happier than, cannot surpass Gayle. You cannot out-happy her. I am equally as happy for her … [There is not even a] hint of jealousy about anything”.

King rounded out the conversation by claiming that ‘everybody’ should have at least one ‘really good’ friend in their lives.

The pair initially struck up a friendship in the late ‘70s while working together at the Baltimore-area news station WJZ-TV.

Winfrey, a 22-year-old news anchor at the time, offered the University of Maryland-educated King, then 21, a place to stay during a major snowstorm.

“We ended up talking all night long,” the Mississippi native revealed to People in 2022. “We’ve literally been friends ever since.”

In 2006, King told The Oprah Magazine that she had ‘never met’ anybody like her friend while Winfrey claimed they’d bonded over both being ‘the odd girl out’.

“We didn’t fit into everybody else’s perception of what it’s like to be a Black girl,” she said.

“But we still had a very strong sense of being Black and were very proud of being Black. So to meet another Black girl like that was, wow!”