Is CBS really giving Gayle King the axe? The New York Post first reported in May 2025 that there was talk that the “CBS Mornings” co-host was on the chopping block due to her sky-high salary of more than $10 million a year. While the figure is significantly less than the reported $13 million she raked in in 2022, according to an insider, it was still more than the bigwigs at CBS either can or want to shell out. “This could be Gayle’s last year,” the source said. (As you may recall, CBS also claimed that the real reason “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” was canceled was also due to financial reasons.)

Alas, it appears it’s not only King’s salary that is giving the powers that be cause for pause as it relates to the television personality’s standing with the company. A source told the New York Post on August 4 that CBS is growing increasingly wary of King and her executive producer, Shawna Thomas, and their “woke” antics amid the morning show’s dwindling ratings. “The audience doesn’t want woke. It doesn’t like progressive and provocative bookings,” the source claimed. “The morning show audience wants optimism and cheer and joy and what they were producing is at odds with audience expectations.” 

According to the insider, King and Thomas have been able to operate this way for many years due to the co-CEO of CBS parent Paramount, George Cheeks’, strong passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. But that’s all changing now as CBS has started rolling those initiatives back, following the Paramount-Skydance merger. “There’s a ton of internal politics,” the source said. “It’s the ‘Hunger Games.’ Everybody’s focused on that and yet they are mired in third place and have been for decades.”

Gayle King joined CBS in 2012 as a co-anchor on “CBS This Morning” – certainly a far cry from her first job at a California Hamburger stand. Soon after claiming her anchor chair, King was nearly untouchable, hailed as one of the broadcasting company’s on-air darlings and the apple of everyone’s eye. “America is noticing Gayle because Gayle notices all of us. She says what you’re thinking, she asks what you’re wondering. The beauty of Gayle is that even when a moment is about her, it feels like it’s about everyone,” then-CBS executive producer Diana Miller once gushed about King’s on-air acumen to People in June 2019. 

At the time, however, King seemed genuinely surprised by her success with the company. “It is very sweet to have this kind of success at this stage in your life, when you weren’t even trying,” she said about her meteoric rise to CBS fame. We’re willing to bet King’s mounting net worth was another very sweet surprise. 

But now it appears everyone has grown tired of King. “She really does need to go.. I just can’t do Gayle.. Love the men but not a fan of hers,” one Instagram user penned in the comments section of the New York Post’s Instagram post teasing its story about King’s “murky future” at CBS. Meanwhile, another user wrote, “Don’t let the door hit ya!” along with the crying laughing emoji. YIKES. Hey, at least she’ll always have her longstanding position as editor-at-large at her BFF Oprah’s magazine.