Exposed! GAYLE KING’S SECRET LIFE!
TV’s toughest cookie battled back after catching hubby cheating & shocking royal snub
HARD-AS-NAILS CBS morning host Gayle King has clawed her way to the top by nabbing huge scoops and ousting her rivals to become the most powerful — and the most secretive — woman in TV news!
Millions watch her on This Morning and her stunning news triumphs — like her scoops on Prince Harry, his Suits actress wife, Meghan, and their royal baby Archie, a jawdropping interview with accused sex perv singer R. Kelly and glitzy yacht parties with former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.
Still, viewers know little about the 64-year-old star off camera.
Now, GLOBE rips the lid off her behind-the-scenes life to reveal how she’s frozen out rivals, survived a shocking sex scandal and lives a stunning private life.
Faced with a wrecked reputation
caused by allegations of sexual misconduct against host Charlie Rose and CEO Les Moonves, CBS News President Susan Zirinsky begged Gayle to save the network.
Sly Gayle only signed on after her salary was doubled to $11 million and her rival Norah O’Donnell was booted off This Morning and moved to 60 Minutes and CBS Evening News, sources claim.
“Gayle wanted to be friends with O'Donnell, but they just didn’t fit together,” snitches an insider.
The friction between them was so bad, “Gayle changed her schedule — getting her hair and makeup done at home at 4 a.m. before arriving at the studio — just to stay away from her,” says a source.
Gayle could have gotten her axed, but instead network brass took the hint and pushed Norah to another slot. But publicly
CBS just doubled her salary to $11M
network officials insist King had nothing to do with the move — and the gals swear they’re pals!
While in public, co-workers praise Gayle as “loyal” and “an optimist” and gush she’s beloved at CBS, outside sources describe her as calculating.
Savvy Gayle managed to nab “one of her biggest interviews — with R. Kelly — as she was negotiating her new contract,” notes an insider.
But she also reportedly nixed an interview with troubled Wendy Williams by allegedly claiming the chat host was too trashy for CBS, sources dish.
Crafty Gayle also used her 40 years in TV news and connections with showbiz stars to wrangle an invite for Duchess Meghan’s baby shower.
But a year earlier, King was on the outside looking in as the former Suits beauty tied the knot with Harry in a starstudded wedding in Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel. Though many of Gayle’s other A-list pals were invited to the event, she was left off the guest list in a shocking snub — and wound up covering the ceremony for her network.
But she rebounded with a her smashing TV special — Meghan and Harry Plus One — and solidified her friendship with the new duchess.
While Gayle’s high-profile pals have introduced her to the most important people in the world, charm turns all these introductions into connections and often friendships, notes the insider: “Other people can open the door, but Gayle knows how to walk through it. That’s why no one was surprised when she was at Meghan’s baby shower, and then got the scoop when baby Archie was born.”
Meanwhile, Gayle’s kept her painful private life — and sex scandal — in the shadows.
Her 11-year marriage to Connecticut Assistant Attorney General William Bumpus, dad of her two grown kids, crashed in 1993 after she caught him cheating and her attempts to salvage it with counseling failed.
The incident was so traumatic she recalls the exact moment of the betrayal — “June 24, 1990, at 9:16 p.m.” — adding that, “I’m not a huge fan of the woman I caught naked with my now exhusband.”
She’s since shared a flirty relationship with presidential hopeful Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, but he is now dating actress Rosario Dawson.
A source says she’s not looking for love because “Gayle is laser-focused on work. You never see her out flirting with men she wants to kiss — she only flirts with men she wants to interview.
“She’s not going to let anything get in the way — including sex!”
Gayle lives alone in a $7 million apartment in New York, while her daughter Kirby, 33, and son William Jr., 32, are in Los Angeles.
The ambitious news gal “is always working,” says a source. “While she likes to get home, close the door, take her wig and makeup off … she is never more than five feet away from her phone … emailing and texting friends and sources.”
She now is angling for interviews with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, college bribery suspect and actress Felicity Huffman and Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
“That’s the life she lives and breathes,” says the source.