Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King's friendship is one for the ages. It spans 50 years from the time they met in Baltimore when Winfrey was a 22-year-old news anchor who offered 21-year-old production assistant King a place to stay to escape a snowstorm. It’s a classic meet-cute, but the women don’t have that kind of love story, though they play a leading role in one another’s lives.

“If we were gay, we'd tell you!” King said in a shared appearance on Melinda French Gates’ Moments That Make Us interview series, published Thursday.

“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,’” King said. The CBS Mornings co-anchor was married to William Bumpus from 1982 to 1993 and shares two children with her ex-husband.

“For years, people used to say we were gay, and listen, we were up against that forever,” Winfrey, who has been with partner Stedman Graham since the mid-’80s, said. “And people still may think it.”

That’s because people “aren't used to seeing women with this kind of truth bond,” she speculated. She said the two women have “shared pretty much everything.”

“The reason why I think our friendship has worked is because Gayle is happier, not happy, but happier for me for any kind of success or victory or challenge I get through than I am for myself,” she added. “And I feel as happy as she does—I can't be happier than, cannot surpass Gayle. You cannot out-happy her. I am equally as happy for her.”

They’re also honest with one another, with King pointing out that people tend to suck up to Winfrey. “Everybody is always very flattering and is always very agreeable with things that she says,” she said of her friend. King doesn’t have to filter herself. “And sometimes I’ll just go, ‘That’s just not true. Your hair does not look good.’” And Winfrey has done the same for her, she confirmed.

Their extraordinary friendship doesn’t feel so unusual to King, she said.

“I just assumed everybody had a really good friend,” she said. “I just assumed every woman—maybe not for men—but I just assumed every woman had at least one.”