Gayle King is opening up about the realities of her dating life.
The television host sat down with Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder and Fred Taylor -- hosts of The Pivot Podcast -- for an interview that dropped Wednesday, where she revealed that she once dumped a boyfriend who asked her for a loan.
"I went on a date. I was really excited, very excited about it," she recalled. "We'd gone out maybe two months and then he said he really needed to talk to me. He wanted to have a private conversation…[he said], 'Do you think you could lend me $4,000?' I’m like, 'Oh god.'"
"I was so crushed because he was somebody who was making, you know, six figures, successful," King continued. "And when I said, you know, could I ask what it's for? He said it was for a child support issue and to pay a payment on some furniture. [I thought] 'Oh god, this is just getting worse.'"
The CBS Mornings host admitted that she did end up giving the man the loan, but that it soured their relationship and she "didn't feel the same" for him, breaking up not long after.
As for what her BFF, Oprah Winfrey, had to say about the cringeworthy experience, King recalled, "Oprah said, 'God, I would have felt better if he had said $40,000.'"
King hasn't been in any public relationships since her 1993 divorce from Connecticut lawyer Bill Bumpus, with whom she shares two children, daughter Kirby, 37, and son William Jr., 36.
"He was a great husband," she shared of her ex in her Pivot interview. "He had a problem with monogamy -- never good in a marriage. Infidelity, just throwing it out there, never good."
As her celebrity has increased over the years, King admitted that she does find dating to be complicated.
"What's difficult is that people say, 'Oh, you’re so intimidating,'" she shared. "Somebody said to me once, 'Gayle, look at your shoes … look at your bag, look at your coat. You’re friends with Oprah!' A guy looks at that and says, 'I can't compete with that.'"
"But my thing is, it's not a matter of competing. I'm not looking for someone to compete," she continued. "You want somebody who has a sense of humor, who's very secure, who’s not intimidated by whatever all of this is, that just sees you for you."
She also shared that she's attracted to men of color, noting, "I just am."
"I love how a Black man says 'motherf**ker' [and] 'baby'... There’s something about the way a Black man says it, I’m just attracted to that," King admitted. "They gotta have something else too, though. What really is most attractive to me is a sense of humor. Kindness, you always get me with kindness."
"I like to see how they interact with other people," she added. "Somebody you can take to the White House and the backyard barbecue, who fits in with both and is comfortable in their own skin. Intelligence really matters to me. Proper grammar really matters to me -- and somebody who can make you laugh."
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