Oprah Winfrey: I'm Not Gay
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) Oprah Winfrey says she's not a lesbian.
Her long personal and professional relationship with Gayle King has sparked rumors that they are gay, but Winfrey denies it in an upcoming interview with ABC's Barbara Walters.
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Persistent gossip that they are more than good friends annoys Winfrey, she says, explaining that if it were true, "Why would you want to hide it?"
"She's the mother I never had. She's the sister everybody would want. She's the friend everybody deserves. I don't know a better person," Winfrey, holding back tears, tells Walters of King.
When Walters asks her about the tears, she responds, "It's making me cry because I'm thinking about - I probably never told her that."
Winfrey will end her daytime talk show next spring and, on Jan. 1, will launch a cable channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network.
That new venture has given her moments of fright.
She tells Walters: "I would wake up in the middle of the night literally like clutching my chest, like, 'What have I done?"'
The interview will air Thursday at 9 p.m. EDT.
