Halle Berry Recalls Her Ex-Husband's Affair While Supporting Gayle King
Halle Berry showed support for Gayle King after the CBS Mornings host's ex-husband apologized for having an affair nearly 40 years ago, in addition to reflecting on a cheating scandal in one of her own past marriages.
"I think we should talk about [infidelity]. Absolutely," Berry, 59, said on the Thursday, May 28, episode of Jenna and Sheinelle. "I'm proud of [King] for saying that and sharing this that happened because it has happened to many of us."
In Berry's case, her ex-husband Eric Benét publicly apologized for infidelity in 2002 and entered a 35-day sex-addict rehab in order to "save my marriage and do anything necessary to do that." He later denied ever actually sleeping with anyone else during his marriage.
"I never did have sexual intercourse with anyone while I was with Halle," Benét, 59, told People in 2005. "Going into rehab was presented to me by her mother that in order for the marriage to have a shot, this is what you need to do."
Benét and Berry ultimately divorced in 2005. (Berry was previously married to baseball player David Justice from 1993 to 1997 and later to French actor Olivier Martinez from 2013 to 2016. The Oscar winner is a mother of two - she shares daughter Nahla Ariela Aubry, 18, with ex Gabriel Aubry and son Maceo-Robert Martinez, 12, with Martinez.)
"You remember every detail of the whole [cheating] situation and it stays with you forever," Berry recalled on Jenna and Sheinelle. "So when you can share it, somehow that's therapeutic. It's a catharsis when you can really share it and someone else can say what their experience has been."
Host Sheinelle Jones asked whether Berry felt she "had to hide" when cheating accusations erupted in her marriage.
"I couldn't hide," Berry clarified. "It was all over the news. … I didn't talk about it necessarily very publicly but I did talk about it. I did not carry the shame."
Earlier this week, CBS Mornings host King, 71, looked back on her ex-husband William Bumpus having an affair during their 11-year marriage. Per King, she returned home from a cancelled flight in 1990 to discover Bumpus, 69, was cheating with one of her closest friends.
"I was thinking, ‘The kids are here, I don't want anybody to know,'" she told Alex Cooper on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast on Wednesday, May 27. "That was my main thought, ‘I don't want anybody to know.' That would not happen to me today."
King went on, "I kept thinking, ‘I don't want it to be a scene,' because they're little, they know this person. My main thing was how do I - which is what I do about most things - how do I handle this situation in this moment?"
In the wake of King's interview, Bumpus publicly apologized to her and their two children - daughter Kirby, 40, and son William Jr., 39 - for "the pain I caused decades ago."
"Gayle has every right to share what was a painful chapter that changed the trajectory of our marriage and our family nearly 40 years ago," he said in a statement. "I respect her right to tell her story, and that's where I'll leave it."
On Thursday, King admitted to TMZ that she was "surprised" by her ex-husband's public apology.
"I can also say I appreciated what he had to say," King said. "That was a very painful time. But people need to understand that anyone who has been through it knows how painful it is. But I also know that you can go through it and get through it on the other side."
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This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 11:20 AM.