Gayle King: Truth Will Prevail in 'Opportunistic' Lawsuit Against Oprah

Entertainment Tonight, Tuesday, October 13, 2009, 1:48pm (PDT)

Entertainment Tonight.

ET spoke with Gayle King -- editor at large for Oprah Winfrey's O magazine and the talk show maven's best friend -- and she opens up about the recent lawsuit against Oprah.

Gayle tells ET her thoughts about the lawsuit, in which her daughter Kirby was also named.

"This is what I'd like to say about my daughter," Gayle tells ET. "This is a young woman who graduated from Stanford last year who's now working on her master's [degree], so to be characterized the way she's been characterized in this lawsuit is very stressful and very upsetting to her and it's just wrong. So when she's upset, as her mother, it makes me upset. And it's one of those things that -- those of us who are close to Oprah know that she's an easy target for these kind of lawsuits….she's a very easy target, and then if you're in the inner circle, you now become a target. But Kirby is a young woman who is just starting her life, so this is a very upsetting thing."

In the lawsuit, a former flight attendant on Oprah's private jet, Corrine Gehrls, alleges that she was fired after two of her co-workers falsely claimed she'd engaged in "inappropriate conduct" with the jet's chief pilot during a flight in June. Gehrls claims one of those former co-workers that made the false claims was Gayle's daughter.

"But what I also know about these kind of lawsuits, these kind of opportunistic lawsuits, for lack of a better word, is that the truth always comes out," Gayle tells us. "I just look forward to the day that the truth will prevail, and I know it will in this case too."

Gayle goes on to say: "This is what's so upsetting to me. It's characterized like Oprah's running some hanky-panky airlines -- nothing could be further from the truth."

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