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Gayle King (born December 28, 1954) is an American television personality, author and broadcast journalist for CBS News, co-hosting its flagship morning program CBS This Morning, a position she has held since its debut in 2012.[2][3] She is also an editor-at-large for O, The Oprah Magazine.
Early life
King was born in Chevy Chase, Maryland and spent years of her childhood living in Ankara, Turkey before eventually returning with her family to the United States. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in psychology.
Career
Television broadcast news
King’s career started as a production assistant at WJZ-TV in Baltimore, where she met Oprah Winfrey, an anchor for the station at the time. King later trained as a reporter at WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C. After working at WJZ, she moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where she was a weekend anchor and general-assignment reporter at WDAF-TV. In 1981, she was hired as a news anchor for WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut, where she worked for 18 years and became a news anchor. Part of that time, she lived in Glastonbury, Connecticut.
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Talk shows
King worked as a special correspondent for The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 1991, King briefly cohosted an NBC daytime talk show with Robin Wagner called Cover to Cover, which was canceled after 13 weeks. In 1997, she was offered her own syndicated talk show, The Gayle King Show, which was canceled after one season due to low ratings.
In September 2006, King began to host The Gayle King Show on XM Satellite Radio.
On January 3, 2011, King began hosting a new show, also called The Gayle King Show, on OWN.[citation needed] The Gayle King Show ended on November 17, 2011, as a result of King going to CBS to co-anchor CBS This Morning.
Print journalism
King joined O, The Oprah Magazine as an editor in 1999.
Network news
Before joining CBS News, King worked as a special correspondent for Good Morning America. On November 10, 2011, King secured a deal with CBS to co-anchor CBS This Morning, beginning on January 9, 2012. She publicly called for CBS to have full transparency when it was learned CBS planned on keeping the findings of sexual abuse and harassment at the network private. She received recognition for remaining stoic during an interview with R. Kelly, who rose from his chair and began to scream and beat his chest in an interview discussing the sexual abuse allegations made against the singer.
In 2018, King was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame. She was also chosen as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2019.
In 2020, shortly after the death of Kobe Bryant, King received social media criticism for a CBS This Morning interview with former WNBA player Lisa Leslie, in which King brought up Bryant’s sexual assault allegations from 2003. King said CBS had used an out-of-context excerpt from the interview. The network said in a statement that the excerpt was not reflective of the “thoughtful, wide-ranging interview” King had conducted with Leslie.
Personal life
King has been best friends with Oprah Winfrey since 1976. In a 2010 interview with Barbara Walters, Winfrey said of King, “[s]he is the mother I never had, she is the sister everybody would want, she is the friend everybody deserves, I don’t know a better person”.
From 1982 to 1993, King was married to Bill Bumpus, an attorney and an assistant attorney general in Connecticut. King has a daughter, Kirby, and a son, William Bumpus Jr.
Bio Source: Wikipedia
