Gayle King is opening up about how she felt after the swift and severe backlash she received after interviewing and questioning Lisa Leslie, a friend of the late Kobe Bryant, and about his past rape allegation.
What We Know:
- The CBS This Morning co-anchor chose a safe space to discuss the drama – with her best friend Oprah Winfrey on Saturday’s final stop of the OWN honcho’s 2020 Vision Tour.
- In the wake of Kobe’s death – in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26 that also killed his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others – King interviewed Leslie about the L.A. Lakers star. King asked multiple questions about whether Leslie felt Bryant’s legacy had been tarnished by the 2003 dismissed rape accusation against him.
- After the clip surfaced, Snoop Dogg, who was still mourning Kobe’s death, took to social media and posted a profanity-laced video directed at King for what he said was her insensitivity to Kobe’s widow, Vanessa, and their daughters. Snoop’s comments received backlash and were taken as a threat against King. Snoop later apologized and went on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk to further express his intentions.
- King, herself, criticized the clip that sparked the drama, saying it was out of context and salacious when the interview was wide-ranging. CBS publicly backed their star.
- King said that amid the drama – which included her newsroom getting death threats – she “put on my game face and my big girl pants, because I never lost sight of who I was, what I believe I am, and my intention. I’ve never lost sight of that. But it certainly was a learning curve, and it was very painful.”
- King also stated, “I think we can disagree politically, we can disagree socially, if you want to, but I just think humanity should prevail always. I think we still have to figure out a way to navigate that with each other. That we can disagree, and you can be mad at me even, you can’t speak to me the way I was spoken to and threatened.”
- During King and Oprah’s conversation, the CBS personality credited her best friend for always being there to discuss things big and small, like the controversy as well as her 1993 divorce, which she rarely talks about.
Oprah shared a video on social media after her interview with King. King admitted she was “so nervous” for the exchange, in front of a sold-out crowd, which surprised Oprah, who said she told King prior to the chat, “I got you”.
