Gayle King Biography

While she was still at the university, Gayle King’s television career started with a job at WTOP-TV in Washington, DC. In 1976, she took up a job as a production assistant at WJZ-TV in Baltimore. She later went on to work as a news anchor and general-assignment reporter at WDAF-TV in Kansas, Missouri. In 1981, she joined CBS affiliate WFSB-TV in Hartford, Connecticut as a television news anchor and continued to work there for the next 18 years.

During this time, she took up other work opportunities too. This included working as a special correspondent for The Oprah Winfrey Show and co-presenting NBC’s daytime talk show Cover to Cover (1991). In 1997, she got her own half-hour syndicated talk show The Gayle King Show; however CBS’s Eyemark Entertainment cancelled it just after one season owing to poor ratings.

The year 1999 saw her picking up editorial responsibilities at the O, The Oprah Magazine.

In 2006, she began hosting — on the XM Satellite Radio channel (satellite and online radio service) — a show with the same name as her previous show The Gayle King Show.Few years later, in 2011, an hour-long daily televised version of the show started airing on OWN – Oprah Winfrey network. The show included discussions on diverse topics ranging from politics to culture.

Later, in 2011 itself, Gayle King was hired by CBS to co-host the channel’s morning television programme called CBS This Morning (premiered in 2012). As its host, King has conducted numerous high profile interviews with significant figures from different fields. These include former US President Barack Obama, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, stand-up comedian Dave Chappelle, actor Dylan Farrow and business magnet Elon Musk.

She has also covered the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and contributed to CBS News' election night coverage in 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020.

She has also hosted and appeared in a number of television specials and documentaries like An Evening of Stars: Tribute to Quincy Jones (2005), Building a Dream: The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy (2007), Global Citizen Festival (2013), Princess Diana: Her Life, Her Death, the Truth (2017), Meghan and Harry Plus One (2019), John Lewis: Celebrating a Hero (2020), Becoming (2020) and Say Her Name: The Untold Story of Breonna Taylor (2020).

Apart from her above work, Gayle King has also made few appearances in films and television shows. These include movies like A Little Bit of Lipstick (entertainment reporter - 2000) and The Manchurian Candidate (media icon - 2004). She has also appeared as herself in movies The Boss (2016) and Queen and Slim (2019) as well as an episode each of television series 30 Rock (2012), Being Mary Jane (2015), Saturday Night Live (2015) and Queen Sugar (2017).

In 2020, she collaborated with satellite radio provider SiriusXM to host a weekly call-in show Gayle King in the House. In the show, she spoke with people around the country about various topics.

Over the years, she has been recognised for her work a number of times. For instance, she has been an Emmy Award winner thrice. Additionally, she won the AWRT’s (American Women in Radio & Television) Gracie Award for Outstanding Radio Talk Show in 2008. In 2010, she bagged a couple awards including the Matrix Award given by NYWICI (New York Women in Communications). In 2017, she was honoured with Variety Power of Women and a year later was admitted into Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame. The year 2019 saw her figure in the TIME 100 which is an annual list by the Time Magazine covering hundred most influential people in the world.

Gayle King was born in 28th December 1954 in Chevy Chase Maryland as the first of four daughters to Scott and Peggy King. Her father was an electronic engineer stationed in Ankara, Turkey and therefore she spent a lot of her early years there before the family eventually moved back to United States. She attended the University of Maryland, College Park and completed her graduation in psychology.

In 1982, she married Bill Bumpus, an attorney and an assistant attorney general in Connecticut. The couple have two children – daughter, Kirby, and son, William. King and Bumpus divorced in 1993.

She has been a close friend of famous talk show host, actress and author, Oprah Winfrey for a long time now. The two first met while working together at a Baltimore television station.