Gayle King Has the Spotlight All to Herself

Ms. King’s celebrity means she has a different relationship with the people she covers than most other anchors do. Ms. King was at Ms. Winfrey’s home in Hawaii one Christmas when Mitt Romney arrived for a visit in his van “and all these Romneys piled out.” Last year, she vacationed with Ms. Winfrey, Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen and Barack and Michelle Obama on David Geffen’s yacht in Tahiti.

In January, Ms. Winfrey gave an impassioned speech at the Golden Globes, causing the entire political universe to wonder if she would run for president in 2020. Ms. King fanned the flames when she said Ms. Winfrey was “intrigued” by the idea. She then clarified that her friend was not “actively considering” a run.

I confessed to Ms. King that I have a (nonpartisan) fantasy of covering Ms. Winfrey’s presidential campaign. We would, of course, grill her on policy and ask all of our usual probing questions. But after a grueling day on the campaign trail, the traveling press corps would get O as our in-flight magazine and Weight Watchers-approved diets. We’d have a book club, obviously, and practice some self-help. “It’s a bit of a fantasy for me, too,” Ms. King said. She put emphasis on the word fantasy.

Ms. King said Ms. Winfrey “is very, very, very happy with her life, and her life would drastically change” were she to run. That hasn’t stopped Ms. King from urging Ms. Winfrey to do it.

The day Ms. Winfrey called me from her Santa Barbara home, her dog barking in the background, she seemed a bit baffled by Ms. King’s persistence. The two women had just talked, and Ms. King had, again, urged her to consider running. “It’s actually really surprised me,” Ms. Winfrey said. “She is still talking about ‘the perfect ticket,’ and I said, ‘I don’t get it. I don’t get why you keep doing this? You of all people are supposed to care about my life,’ and she said, ‘The country is bigger than your life.’”

‘There’s Only One of Her and Only One of Me, and I Kind of Like Me’

The rhythms of a morning TV host are brutal. Ms. King is 63, with two grown children, but when she tells me about her life, she sounds like a college student or one of those girls who moves to New York to live like a “Sex and the City” character. The night before we first met, Ms. King had eaten only cereal for dinner, and her Fitbit reported that she slept 3 hours and 15 minutes. She and Ms. Winfrey used to talk four or five times a day, but when she started at CBS, the late-night calls began to wane. Ms. Winfrey said, “I remember talking on the phone and then I’m like, ‘Gayle? Gayle? Are you there?” She had fallen asleep on Oprah.

Ms. Winfrey worries about Ms. King’s lifestyle. “This lack of sleep thing is going to catch up with you,” she tells her. She’d also like her to take the time to date and find a partner, maybe a professorial, bookish type who lives a quieter life, preferably someone who could cook and stock the fridge.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/business/media/gayle-king-has-the-spotlight-all-to-herself.html?partner=rss&emc=rss