Snoop Dogg Dragged Gayle King For Filth Over Kobe Bryant Rape Accusations — How Gayle Responded
And Gayle responded.
Getty Images When WNBA star Lisa Leslie went on CBS This Morning to talk to longtime correspondent — and Oprah Winfrey's BFF — Gayle King, the last thing she, or anyone else, expected was that she was going to be asked about the late Kobe Bryant's sexual assault case. The blowback from the question was immediate and swift — so much so that even King, herself, was shocked by the response — but rapper Snoop Dogg took it to the next level and dragged King for filth.
But, as with all stories, there's always more to it than meets the eye — so why are Snoop Dogg and Gayle King really feuding? How deep does it go?
RELATED: 11 Reasons Gayle King Is The Badass Hero You Never Knew You Needed
Let's look at what we know about the beef between the legendary rapper and the legendary broadcaster.
1. Why are Snoop Dogg and Gayle King feuding? It has to do with her question to Lisa Leslie about Kobe Bryant's rape allegations.
On February 4, 2020, Gayle King spoke with WNBA star Lisa Leslie for CBS This Morning. Leslie was Kobe Bryant's good friend while he was still alive. During the interview, King asked Leslie about the late basketball star's legacy in light of his rape accusations (which, ultimately, were dismissed after the alleged victim failed to cooperate with prosecutors). The question was used in promotional clips of the wide-ranging interview and was met with online critcism and specifically, it deeply offended Snoop Dogg, who took to his Instagram to lambast King about the question. You can check out his Instagram post below.
2. Snoop Dogg then spent the next few Instagram posts lambasting King and Winfrey.
In a series of follow-up posts made to his Instagram page, Snoop Dogg lambasted both King and Winfrey for seeming to defend other sexual predators — particularly Winfrey's "self-help guru," who was sentenced to nearly 20 years for sex crimes, and Harvey Weinstein — while taking people like Bill Cosby and, of course, Bryant to task. Snoop Dogg said that both King and Winfrey especially seemed to not only befriend Weinstein, but make him avoid scrutiny while trying to tarnish Bryant's name after he was dead and could no longer defend himself.
3. 50 Cent then leaped to Snoop Dogg's defense.
Because Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson never met a fight that he didn't like, he immediately jumped to the defense of "Uncle Snoop" while calling Winfrey "funky dog face" and misspelling King's name. It bears stating, of course, that 50 Cent and Winfrey have also had a long-standing feud (that goes off and on, for the record), so perhaps he was just adding fuel to his already-blazing fire.
4. Leslie, for her part, defended Bryant.
For what it was worth, Leslie disputed King's claims that Bryant's legacy is "complicated" because of his 2003 rape accusation. "I don't think it's something we should keep hanging over his legacy," she said. "I think the media should be more respectful at this time. It's like if you had questions about it, you've had many years to ask him that."
5. King claimed her question was "taken out of context."
"Unbeknownst to me, my network put up a clip from a very wide-ranging interview, totally taken out of context, and when you see it that way, it's very jarring," King said on Instagram, which you can watch the entireity of below. "It's jarring to me. I didn't even know anything about it. I started getting calls, 'What the hell are you doing? Why did you say this? What is happening?' I did not know what people were talking about."
6. CBS also stood by King and her interview with Leslie.
In a statement, CBS said that they stood by King and her reporting, blaming the social media manager for not doing the right thing. "Gayle conducted a thoughtful, wide-ranging interview with Lisa Leslie about the legacy of Kobe Bryant. An excerpt was posted that did not reflect the nature and tone of the full interview. We are addressing the internal process that led to this and changes have already been made," they said.
7. Even Winfrey weighed in.
King did not appear on CBS This Morning on Friday, February 7, 2020, and Winfrey went on the Today with Hoda & Jenna show to explain why. "May I say, she is not doing well?" Winfrey said, tearfully. "Because she [King] has, now, death threats, and has to now travel with security. She’s feeling very much attacked."
Winfrey went on to blame CBS for airing the teaser clip, backing up King's claim that her interview was "taken out of context."
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Bernadette Giacomazzo is an editor, writer, publicist, and photographer whose work has appeared in Teen Vogue, People, Us Weekly, The Source, XXL, HipHopDX, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, BET.com, and more.