Gayle King’s Ex-Husband Speaks Out After Getting Caught Cheating With Her Friend Years Ago

Gayle King is getting all the way candid about the unfortunate circumstances that led to her divorce from her ex-husband, William Bumpus, in 1993. Now, the man at the center of it all is finally speaking out.

In case you missed it, King recently divulged the details in a new interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast on Wednesday. During the conversation, King revealed that in 1990, she came home from the airport earlier than expected, only to find her husband wrapped in a towel inside. When he tried to warn her that there was someone else in the home, King still made her way inside. That’s when she found a friend of hers also wrapped in a bath towel “cowering behind the door.”

“I said, ‘I can’t believe that you are here and you are doing this,’” King said at the time. “I even said, ‘I thought we were friends.’ I sounded so pitiful.”

To make matters worse, Bumpus then left King at home alone while he drove her friend to the train station after getting caught.

Now, speaking out in a lengthy statement to TMZ, Bumpus is apologizing for his actions to the CBS host and their family for the “painful chapter” he made her endure in their relationship.

“My deepest apologies to Gayle, to our daughter Kirby and her husband, Virgil, to our son William and his wife, Elise, and to our three grandchildren, for the pain I caused decades ago. Those actions were mine. I have long owned them — including publicly in my own words in 2016, which still stand,” Bumpus said.

He continued by saying that King had every right to share the memory and that he was ultimately grateful to her for giving him their two children and for supporting him in his professional endeavors.

“It was Gayle who encouraged and supported me through getting my Yale Law degree,” Bumpus explained. “And it was Gayle who chose, with me, to co-parent successfully from the very beginning — a testament to our shared commitment to our children above all else, and now our grandchildren. The love and camaraderie we forged in that work have carried us all these years.”

As he concluded, Bumpus further shared that he and King are in a better place these days and admitted to being unappreciative of the public life she lived, citing his need for more privacy. Despite his shortcomings, Bumpus is still proud of all that King has accomplished and describes himself as one of her “genuine admirers and fans.”

“Nearly four decades later, that commitment has only deepened, and Gayle and I remain in a good place…As a private person by nature, I will admit that during our marriage, I did not fully appreciate Gayle’s public life — I wanted ours to be more private, and that was something I wrestled with, and no reflection on her true talent and abilities,” Bumpus said. “I am proud to have had a front-row seat to Gayle’s remarkable success, and I remain a genuine admirer and fan.”

King has yet to respond to her ex-husband’s reaction.