Gayle King Says She and Fox News’ Jesse Watters Had ‘a Good Time’ After Being Seated Together on Flight: ‘Saving Your Number’

Gayle King, the co-anchor of CBS Mornings, surprised viewers after sharing a selfie from a recent flight showing her seated beside Fox News host Jesse Watters. King, 70, described the unexpected seating arrangement in an Instagram caption, noting that the pair spent more than four hours talking and enjoyed pleasant conversation.

“Two TV people from competing networks walk on to a plane and to the surprise of them both, they’re seated right next to each other for over four hours,” she wrote. “How did it go? Speaking for @jessewatters here: A good time was had by all! Hi, Jesse…saving your number!”

Responses to the post were mixed. Some praised King for setting aside political differences and engaging amiably with a conservative host, seeing the exchange as an example of civility and common humanity.

“I love how two people with completely opposite political views can end up sitting next to each other on a plane, share a few laughs, talk about where they’re headed, maybe even swap stories about their families — and genuinely get along,” one commenter wrote. “It’s a good reminder that kindness, curiosity, and a smile go a lot farther than our differences.”

Others criticized King for appearing to give a platform to Watters given his history of controversial remarks about race, gender and politics. Many commenters pointed to past statements they found offensive and questioned the optics of the lighthearted airport photo.

Watters has faced repeated backlash over his commentary. In 2023, during debates around revised school standards in Florida, he argued that enslaved people developed skills they later used to support themselves — a claim many found deeply insensitive in context. More recently, Watters drew criticism for mocking masculinity and for comments about public figures that some interpreted as misogynistic.

In September, Watters suggested on air that an escalator and teleprompter malfunction at the United Nations — which affected President Donald Trump’s entrance during the General Assembly — may have been sabotage. During that discussion he said extreme things about the U.N., including that it should be “destroyed,” later tempering his remarks with an apology to the organization.

The image King shared — and the conversation it has generated — highlights wider tensions about how public figures engage across political lines. For some, the photo was a welcome sign that people can connect despite disagreement; for others, it underscored concerns about normalizing commentators whose remarks have been divisive.

Regardless of views about the two hosts, the exchange on the plane quickly became a catalyst for a broader conversation about civility, responsibility and the limits of social gestures in a highly polarized media landscape.