Oprah Winfrey has big news: she is not gay. She made this statement in response to rumors that she and long time best friend, Gayle King, were more than friends.

“I understand why people think we’re gay. There isn’t a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women,” Winfrey wrote, in the August issue of her magazine, O. King added, “if we were gay, we would tell you, because there’s nothing wrong with being gay.”

The two women have been friends for thirty years and are inseperable. When they are separated, they say they call each other four times a day. It also probably helps that the two were friends before Winfrey became rich and famous. King is, what sociologist Jan Yager - on The Early Show, Tuesday - calls a “nostalgia friend”. That is, she is someone who is tried and true; who has been there from the beginning.

It is not surprising that some people mistake their close bond for more than friendship and assume that the relationship is also sexual. “Our friendship is better than a marriage or sexual relationship,” said Winfrey, who has never been married. King is divorced.