Gayle King Facing Death Threats after Lisa Leslie Interview

A week or so after Kobe Bryant’s death, Gayle King did an interview with Lisa Leslie, a retired WNBA basketball player that populated a lot of negative comments and accused King of trying to harm Kobe’s legacy. In order to promote King’s interview with Leslie, CBS released a short clip of the interview on their social media and online sites that featured the part of the interview where Gayle King mentioned the 2003 Colarado sexual assault case that Kobe Bryant was involved in. In the interview clip, she mentions “it has been said that his legacy is complicated, because of a sexual assault charge that was dismissed in 2003… 2004” and asks Lisa if Kobe’s legacy is complicated for her. Leslie immediately denied the question and told Gayle that Kobe was not the type of person to assault a woman. She has been good friends with Kobe for many years, and has never seen that type of behavior in him -- even when they would hang out at the club! Critics of the video believe that Gayle King shouldn’t have mentioned old allegations that were dismissed, especially since his death is still so fresh in everyone's hearts.

After seeing the interview, Snoop Dogg decided to make a video for social media and told Gayle King to back off “before we come get you.” Some people agreed with Snoop Dogg’s video, but others didn’t think it was appropriate to threaten Gayle. He insists that he was not threatening her, but expressing the feelings of those who were offended and shocked that Gayle King would ask a question like that. He felt as though she was being disrespectful to Kobe Bryant’s wife and family.

Since the video was released, Gayla King has released a video response saying that she is “mortified, embarrassed and very angry” because the video was shared out of context. She has received death threats and has not been back on air since the uproar began. CBS has released a statement saying that the clip was poorly edited and that it “did not reflect the nature and tone of the full interview.” Gayle King returned back to “CBS This Morning” on February 10th, and is not looking to speak about the interview nor the backlash she faced.