Who Is William Bumpus? All About Gayle King’s Ex-Husband & His Affair
What To Know
- Gayle King recently discussed her ex-husband William Bumpus’ infidelity.
- Bumpus cheated on King with her friend, which led to their divorce in 1993.
- Bumpus publicly apologized for his actions, acknowledging the pain he caused.
Gayle King is opening up about her painful history with ex-husband William Bumpus.
The CBS Mornings host appeared on the May 27 episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, during which host Alex Cooper asked about King discovering that her then-husband was having an affair with her friend. After King recounted the full story, Bumpus issued a statement to TMZ, apologizing for the “pain [he] 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, referring his first apology via Page Six. “Gayle has every right to share what was a painful chapter that changed the trajectory of our marriage and our family nearly 40 years ago. I respect her right to tell her story, and that’s where I’ll leave it.”
Now that their past relationship is back in the public eye, keep reading for all of the details about Bumpus, including his job and more.
Who is William Bumpus?
Though he said he’d retired in a 2021 Instagram post, Bumpus is a senior partner for The Wolf and Shore Law Group, per his professional bio on the company’s website. It says that Bumpus specializes in family law and child protection cases, as well as collaborative divorce ones.
He has a marketing bachelor’s degree from Central Connecticut State University — where he later became an adjunct professor and associate dean — in 1984 and graduated from Yale Law School in 1988.
When were William Bumpus and Gayle King married?
Bumpus and King married in 1982. They divorced in 1993, despite King catching him three years earlier with another woman. “I’m not a huge fan of the woman I caught naked with my now ex-husband on June 24, 1990, at 9:16 P.M. — but I don’t remember the details,” the journalist told Vanity Fair in 2o16.
During her appearance on Cooper’s podcast, King said their kids was the only reason their relationship wasn’t “game over.”
“But we went to counseling, tried to work it out, actually got divorced, and got back together. We actually got divorced and got back together,” she said. “And then I realized, he hadn’t really changed, but I was turning into such a shrew. I would be out in the garage feeling the hood of the car to see if it was warm. I was going through his phone. And I thought, ‘I don’t want to live like this.’ Only to find out, he was cheating again. He was cheating again.”
Who did William Bumpus cheat on Gayle King with?
King hasn’t revealed the identity of the woman Bumpus cheated on her with, though she has shared details about their encounter in her home.
King told Cooper that she didn’t call Bumpus to let him know she was coming home early after a trip to Washington, D.C. When she got back, King noticed that Bumpus had turned on the house’s alarm system. “Next thing I know, he comes flying out of the room, and he’s got a towel on. He goes, ‘You can’t come in.’ [I’m like,] ‘What do you mean I can’t come in? What are you talking about?” she explained. “He goes, ‘You can’t come in. Someone’s here.’ I go, ‘Someone like who? There’s nobody here.’”
King searched the house and saw her friend “cowering behind the door, in my towel.” “I said, ‘I can’t believe that you are here and that you are doing this. I can’t believe that you are doing this…’ I even said, ‘I thought we were friends.’ I sounded so pitiful,” King recalled to Cooper, adding that her young children were home at the time.
Bumpus took the woman to a train station for her husband to pick her up, as the husband thought she was away at a conference. King said she was initially hesitant to call the friend’s husband, but was encouraged to do so by Oprah Winfrey. Upon learning of the affair, the husband told King, “‘She told me you would be calling. She said that you came home early, unexpected, and you drew the wrong conclusion. And she told me you would call and say that you thought they were having an affair.’”
“Masterful, isn’t that masterful?” she remarked to Cooper. “He said to me, ‘You are delusional and out of touch with reality, and I suggest you get some help.’”
“I said, ‘OK, you think I should get some help? Does your wife have a pink satin pajama top? Does she have some green mint panties that go with that? By the way, Richard, there are semen stains in my bed. So, am I delusional and out of touch with reality?’” King continued. “And then, I said, ‘Go f**k yourself,’ and I hung up the telephone.”
Do Gayle King and William Bumpus have kids?
King and Bumpus share two kids: daughter Kirby, who was born in 1986, and son William, who came along a year later. They continued to coparent after their divorce. “The kids love their dad,” King told Cooper. “The dad loves the kids, so you’ve got to figure out a way to navigate it.”
Bumpus has since had another daughter, Poet Willow, with another woman.
View this post on Instagram
“I share adult children @kirbybump and @willgb3 with @gayleking who has been an excellent co parent and now co grandparent, and has always been gracious, and kept our children as the focus,” Bumpus wrote on Instagram. “I am raising my teenage daughter, Poet Willow Bumpus, 14, and navigating this journey solo. This experience has given me a greater appreciation of parenting overall, and helped me realize how grateful I am to be a father.”
King and Bumpus first became grandparents in 2021 when Kirby and her husband, Virgil Milleher, welcomed son Luca. In 2024, the pair’s daughter Grayson was born.
In November 2025, King announced that Will and his wife, Elise Smith, were expecting their first child. “Breaking news! Our family is growing!!” the reporter wrote in an Instagram post. “Favorite son @willgb3 and favorite daughter-in-law, the lovely @elisemariesmith have JUST given me permission to share photos from Sunday’s baby shower and their baby shoot. They can’t wait and neither can anybody who loves them!”
