Oprah Winfrey & Gayle King address the rumors that they’re a lesbian couple

Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King recently tackled persistent rumors that they secretly lesbian lovers.

On a July 24 episode of Melinda Gates’s Moments that Make Us interview series, the famous besties sat down with the host to discuss their decades-long friendship, which began in the mid-70s when they both worked for a Baltimore television station.

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“My hope for you is that you are living a life that feels authentic to you.”

At one point, Gates asked Winfrey and King how they’ve navigated their very public lives as media figures while protecting their privacy.

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“What have we not shared?” King responded, as both she and Winfrey laughed.

“I think we’ve shared pretty much everything, and I would have to say it wasn’t even a matter of navigation,” Winfrey explained.

“You know, for years, people used to say we were gay,” she continued. “And listen, we were up against that forever, and people still may think it.”

“And I used to say to Oprah: ‘You’ve got to do a show on this, because it’s hard enough for me to get a date on Saturday night with people thinking we’re gay!’” King joked. “Because if we were gay, we would tell you!”

Both King and Winfrey have been in long-term relationships with men—Winfrey with longtime partner Stedman Graham, and King with ex-husband William Bumpus, with whom she shares two children. But tabloid speculation about their famously close bond hit its peak in the late ’90s and early 2000s.

“I know when that was said about you. I remember that rough time frame,” Gates said. “But what I think you’ve taught society… is that women can have deep, true friendships.”

“One of the things I started to think was, maybe people aren’t accustomed to seeing women with this kind of truth bond,” Winfrey said.

Winfrey and King’s comments to Gates echoed those they made in a 2006 issue of O: The Oprah Magazine. “I understand why people think we’re gay,” Winfrey wrote. “There isn’t a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it — how can you be this close without it being sexual?”

“The truth is, if we were gay, we would tell you, because there’s nothing wrong with being gay,” King wrote in the same issue of O.

“I’ve told nearly everything there is to tell. All my stuff is out there,” Winfrey added. “People think I’d be so ashamed of being gay that I wouldn’t admit it? Oh, please.”

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