Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King break silence on lesbian relationship rumours

American television personalities Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King have shut down long-standing rumours that they are a lesbian couple.

The pair have been friends since 1976, with rumours that they are in a secret relationship dating back almost as far.

Although it’s been denied before, Oprah, 70, and 69-year-old King addressed the gossip once more, this time on Melinda French Gates’ Moments That Make Us interview series, on Thursday (25 July).

“I think we’ve shared pretty much everything,” Oprah said of her bond with CBS presenter King. “For years, people used to say we were gay, and listen, we were up against that for ever. And people still may think it.”

King joked that the rumour made it “hard [to] get a date on Saturday night”, adding: “If we were gay, we’d tell you.”

Oprah went on to say: “The reason 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.”

King continued: “I just assumed everybody had a really good friend. I just assumed every woman – maybe not for men – had at least one.”

In 2013, talk-show host Andy Cohen asked Oprah whether she had ever “taken a dip in the lady pond”.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight last month, he admitted: “That’s probably one of my few regrets. It meant so much to me that Oprah Winfrey did the show. It’s gone brilliantly and I turn around and ask her if she’s every had sex with a woman. I mean, couldn’t I leave it alone?

“Gayle King told me later that week that Oprah didn’t know what I meant by ‘the lady pond’.”