Gayle King
It certainly doesn’t hurt to have friends in high places. That couldn’t be more true in the case of Gayle King, the most famous BFF in modern history. Gayle and Oprah’s friendship dates back to Oprah’s days as a TV news anchor in Baltimore, where Gayle was also working before she moved on to a job as a newscaster in Hartford, Conn. When a couple of attempts at hosting TV shows didn’t pan out, Gayle left broadcasting behind to become editor-at-large at O, The Oprah Magazine in 1999. She rekindled her relationship with TV by appearing as a special correspondent on several episodes of Oprah.In 2006, King moved on to yet another medium, landing her own talk show on XM Satellite Radio.
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Related Topics: Television Dr. Phil
When psychologist Phil McGraw met Oprah Winfrey while helping her prep for a libel trial in 1996, it was the beginning of a relationship that would eventually make McGraw one of America’s most popular self-help experts. Oprah was taken to court by the cattle industry in 1996, after claims one of her programs on mad cow disease prompted an $11 million downturn in the industry. Oprah was vindicated, but the real winner of the case was the young head of the trial consulting firm Oprah hired to assist her legal team. So taken was Oprah with McGraw that she invited him on her program in 1998, shortly after the trial ended. McGraw, rebranded as Dr. Phil, proved one of Oprah’s most popular guests, earning himself a weekly time slot, and in 2002, his own syndicated TV show, Dr. Phil, produced by Oprah’s Harpo Productions.
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