Gayle King Details Catching Her Ex-Husband William Bumpus Having an Affair With Her Friend

“I get down,” she recalled, “and there she is cowering behind the door in my towel. 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. I even said—I sounded so pitiful—'I thought we were friends.’”

Gayle—who said her first call to after discovering the indiscretion was to her longtime friend Oprah Winfrey—walked in on Willaim’s affair in 1990, though they wouldn’t divorce until 1993 after 11 years of marriage.

For his part, William has apologized publicly for his actions. 

"I have been haunted with this life altering choice,” he shared in a statement with Page Six in July 2016. “Though I have dealt with this privately...I publicly apologize for the major transgression that dramatically changed all of our lives. I have nothing but the utmost respect for Gayle and how she handled herself with grace. Despite the situation, she kept our children, as well as my relationship and involvement with them, as a clear priority.”

He added, “Gayle was a great wife, an excellent mother and a fantastic co-parent. I am eternally grateful for all that she has done and continues to do to enrich my life and the lives of our incredible adult children. I continue to be a work in progress and have spent the last 26 years striving to be a better man and father.”

As for whether Gayle suspected her then-husband of anything before seeing it with her own eyes, the CBS anchor told Alex there was one moment that started to rouse her suspicion.

“I always say if I was writing a book, the first line in my book would be, ‘Whack,’ the sound of a tennis ball,” the 71-year-old said. She added of the woman, whose name she’s never revealed, “She said, ‘Nice shot, Bill.’ And the way she said it, there was such an intimacy in her voice that the hair stood up on the back of my neck. And I thought, ‘Why am I feeling that way?’ It was weird.”

After all, both she and the woman were married and had two little kids. Plus, the foursome were all friends.

“But there was something about the way she said, ‘Nice shot, Bill,’” Gayle added, “that I then looked and I thought did I see them looking at each other, and when I asked him in the car, he said, ‘What are you talking about?’ They try to gaslight you, by the way. ‘What are you talking about?’ And so he goes, ‘Absolutely not.’”

Nevertheless, “I did see what I saw,” Gayle noted, though it would take some time before she was ready to leave the marriage.

“If I hadn't had children it would have been game over,” she said. “But we went to counseling, tried to work it out. We actually got divorced and got back together. And then I realized he hadn't really changed.”

For more celebrity couples who found themselves embroiled in cheating scandals, read on.