Gayle King's Net Worth and Career Got a Boost From Her Friendship With Oprah

When Oprah mourned her father's passing last week, her best friend Gayle King was at her side. The two women have been friends for about 46 years, and King owes much of her net worth to their friendship.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, King has amassed a net worth of $40 million as a journalist, author, and magazine editor. Although accomplished on her own, King’s career did get a boost from her relationship with Oprah, whom she met in 1976 when the two worked at WJZ-TV in Baltimore. King was a production assistant at the station, while Oprah was an anchor.

“We became friends that first night because for the first time, I met somebody who I felt was like me,” King told O, The Oprah Magazine in 2006. “I’d never met anybody like that. Certainly not another Black girl. I grew up in an all-white community.”

“She is the mother I never had. She is the sister everybody would want. She is the friend that everybody deserves. I don’t know a better person,” Winfrey said about King in a tearful interview with Barbara Walters in 2010.

Born in Maryland, King spent five years of her childhood living in Turkey, where her father, an electrical engineer for the government, was stationed. After returning to the U.S., King went on to her earn her college degree in psychology from the University of Maryland - College Park.

King’s first job in television was for the Baltimore station where she met Winfrey. After that, she worked for television stations in Washington, D.C., Kansas City, Missouri, and Connecticut. She gradually moved up in the ranks from general assignment reporter to weekend anchor to news anchor.

In 1981, King settled into a job as a news anchor for channel WFSB in Hartford, Conn., and stayed there for 18 years. During that time, King also helped out her gal pal by appearing as a special correspondent on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

King had opportunities to host an NBC daytime talk show, Cover to Cover, and her own syndicated talk show, The Gayle King Show, but both shows were short-lived.

Then, in 1999, King's famous bestie enlisted her as the editor of O, The Oprah Magazine. It’s a role she is still in today. Over the years, King has also hosted several television and radio shows titled The Gayle King Show, most of which didn’t last long. The longest-running Gayle King Show was on XM Satellite Radio from September 2006 to November 2011. She now hosts the SiriusXM show Gayle King in the House.

King started her current gig as co-anchor of CBS This Morning in November 2011. She extended her deal with CBS in January. Her salary is estimated at $11 million, reports Celebrity Net Worth.

King is currently single. She was married for 11 years to Connecticul Assistant Attorney Bill Bumpus, but the couple divorced in 1993 when King discovered Bumpus had cheated on her. The couple has two children together.