Gayle King on Relationship with Charlie Rose after Sexual Misconduct Claims

Three years after CBS’s Charlie Rose was fired from the network for misconduct allegations, Gayle King revealed she’s still in touch with her disgraced ex co-host.

Gayle King just became the new leading face of CBS’s “This Morning,” after signing a new three-year deal with the network worth $11 million annually and doubling her previous paycheck.

The decision wasn’t too hard to make for Susan Zirinsky—who has been at the front of CBS News since January of this year—after watching the remarkable job King did in her interview with R&B singer and alleged sexual abuser R. Kelly.

King is aware of the responsibility that entails her new position at the network, and she’s up for the challenge.

"I feel a lot of privilege," King recently told The Hollywood Reporter. "I am now a part of that history. Let's see what we do."

THE BEGINNING AND FALLOUT

In 2012, when CBS introduced a revamped version of “This Morning,” Gayle joined Charlie Rose, who was a longtime correspondent at 60 Minutes, and Norah O’Donnell, who came on board a few months after the January 2012 release of the show.

Together, the trio earned CBS its biggest morning audience in the past two decades.

However, all changed in 2017 when the Washington Post published a report with detailed accounts of several women who had worked with Rose in the past, accusing him of harassment and a patter of misconduct that included "unwanted sexual advances…including lewd phone calls, walking around naked, and groping [women's] breasts, buttocks or genital areas."

A DIFFERENT OPINION

When Rose was fired from the network, both King and O’Donnell were left in charge of “This Morning,” and where O’Donnell addressed the allegations face-on and defended the accusers, Gayle was a bit more hesitant.

Oprah Winfrey, Gayle’s best friend, told the New York Times journalist Amy Chozick that she watched that morning show on the edge of her seat.

“Norah was up there kicking a*s, for women and #MeToo,” Winfrey said. “And Gayle was like, ‘Oh my daddy died. Oh lordy, my daddy died.’”

In that NY Times profile, Gayle admitted that although she believed Rose’s accusers, “you can hold two ideas in your head at the same time.” Meaning, that although she sympathizes with the abused women, she doesn’t believe everyone should be shunned from society.

STANDING BY ROSE

When asked if she believed there was redemption for some of the #MeToo men, King was blunt: “Amy, murderers are walking around,” she said. And continued:

“People who kill people are walking around. They might not be able to get [their] jobs back, but surely there must be room for some redemption somewhere. I don’t know what the answer is to that, and it might be too soon. Maybe people don’t want to hear that.”

“I know there are two sides to every story, that’s what I know,” she said of Rose at the time.

One year later, King confirmed the status of their relationship once again, telling the HR, "Charlie is not on my you're-dead-to-me list. I saw him about a month ago."

ROSE’S RESPONSE TO THE ALLEGATIONS

After the first report with eight women accusing Rose of misconduct hit the news, Rose released a statement apologizing and claiming that he “always felt that I was pursuing shared feelings, even though I now realize I was mistaken.”

He continued:

“I have learned a great deal as a result of these events, and I hope others will too. All of us, including me, are coming to a newer and deeper recognition of the pain caused by conduct in the past, and have come to a profound new respect for women and their lives.”

However, after 27 more women came forward with the same kind of accusation against Rose, he called their story “unfair and inaccurate.” He also stated in at a later date that his accusers were “exploiting” the #MeToo movement.