Oprah Winfrey shocked Gayle King with a special birthday surprise for her longtime friend.
The heartwarming moment was captured in a video Winfrey shared to Instagram Dec. 14. In the clip, the duo walk arm-in-arm before they come across a cheering crowd.
As the roaring shouts and cheers begin, King, who turns 70 on Dec. 28, takes several steps back, drops her purse on a table and freezes with her hands over her heart.
The massive group, which included TODAY’s Hoda Kotb and Al Roker, continued to scream, then broke into “Happy birthday.”
“My bestie of 50 years is turning 70 so we gathered everyone that loved her to celebrate,” Winfrey captioned the video. “Hard thing to surprise her, O the stories we have made up, the lies we have told to keep this a secret.”
“Happy birthday @gayleking, sorry we almost gave you a heart attack,” she added with a crying-laughing emoji.
Winfrey and King met in 1976 when they worked together at local Baltimore news station WJZ-TV. One night during a major snowstorm, then-anchor Winfrey offered King, who was at the time a production assistant, a place to stay for the night — and the rest is history.
In an interview with the New York Times published in January, Winfrey said she feels they’ve become the “gold standard for friendship.”
“I actually think that is deserved,” she added.
Then on a July episode of Melinda French Gates’ “Moments That Make Us” series, the two addressed rumors they’ve heard about their close relationship.
“I would have to say, it wasn’t even a matter of navigation,” Winfrey said. “You know, for years, people used to say we were gay, and listen, we were up against that forever. And people still may think it.”
King added, “I used to say, ‘Oprah, you gotta do a show on this, because it’s hard enough for me to get a date on Saturday night with people thinking we’re gay.’ Because if we were gay, we would tell you.”
