In her 25 seasons on television, Oprah Winfrey ruled the daytime talk show scene, often allowing guests to open up about difficult subjects and their life issues.
Some of those guests likely felt that being on the couch with Oprah and discussing emotional situations for her show was therapeutic.
Oprah’s popular Chicago-based infotainment and talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, ran from September 1986 to May 2011, which meant a lot of guests for Oprah to listen to and emotional situations to navigate.
Throughout those 25 seasons, many therapists also appeared on her longtime show to discuss various topics with Oprah, guests, and audience members.
However, the woman called the Queen of All Media recently admitted she’s “never been to a therapist” herself.
Instead, she said her “real therapy” came from her best friend, Gayle King.
Oprah credits her friend Gayle King as her ‘real therapy’
“I’ve never been to a therapist because I had so many on the show, but my real therapy came from downloading whatever was happening in the day with Gayle every night,” Oprah recently told People.
Most who know of Oprah also know about her best friend, Gayle. The current CBS Mornings host and Oprah have been friends for almost 50 years.
They initially met and bonded as co-workers at WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland. Oprah was one of the station’s news anchors, while Gayle was a production assistant/writer.
They’ve remained friends throughout their careers, with Gayle appearing the most of any celebrity on Oprah’s talk show. Celine Dion is second.
“There wasn’t a day that we missed being on some kind of phone call talking about what had happened in our days,” Oprah said about her friendship with Gayle in her People interview.
Oprah says her friendship with Gayle is ‘one of the anybody best could have’
Oprah and Gayle recently traveled to Japan with several other women, visiting four cities in eight days. According to Gayle, they experienced the culture and checked out various attractions, but the friends’ main goal was to see cherry blossoms in bloom.
In an Instagram post from Oprah featuring herself standing next to Gayle, she revealed that they accomplished their mission.
With such a close friendship, some might believe Gayle and Oprah would do anything to help one another. That might be true, but it doesn’t include learning to cap an oil rig together.
Last month, Gayle posted a humorous video in which she tried to prank Oprah by asking her to go with her to learn how to cap an oil rig. After explaining what was involved, Oprah became silent before saying she wasn’t interested.
“Ask your other friend,” Oprah told her, just before the next clip featured Gayle’s friend and CNN co-host Charles Barkley saying, “No, f**k no” to the request.
Despite that response to Gayle’s random request, Oprah told People why she’s grateful to have her as her close friend.
“I’ve had one of the best friendships anybody could have. And you can only do that when somebody cares as much about your success, your sadnesses, your triumphs as you do,” she shared.