*CBS has addressed Gayle King’s response to the backlash over her asking about the Kobe Bryant rape case in an interview with WNBA star Lisa Leslie.
In a video shared on her Twitter page, King accuses CBS of editing the clip of the conversation that sparked outrage among fans of the NBA legend.
The “CBS This Morning” co-anchor slammed the network for distributing an “out-of-context” clip from the interview where she discussed the rape allegation made against Bryant years ago.
In 2003, Bryant was accused of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old hotel employee in Colorado. He was charged with rape, but the case was dropped after the accuser refused to testify. She filed a civil suit that was later settled.
In a clip of the “CBS This Morning” interview posted on social media Tuesday, King asks Leslie if she thinks Bryant’s legacy is “complicated” by the sexual assault charge.
“It’s been said that his legacy is complicated because of a sexual assault charge,” King asked. “Is it complicated for you as a woman, as a WNBA player?”
“It’s not complicated for me at all,” Leslie replied. “I just never have ever seen him being the kind of person that would do something to violate a woman or be aggressive in that way. That was just never the person that I know.”
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King followed-up with: “But Lisa, you wouldn’t see it, though,” she said. “As his friend, you wouldn’t see it.”
“And that’s possible,” replied Leslie. “I just don’t believe that.”
King then asked if it’s “even a fair question to talk about” the rape case, “considering he’s no longer with us and that it was resolved,” or if it is “really part of his history.” To which Leslie noted that the media “should be more respectful at this time.”
Fans immediately slammed King for attempting to smear Bryant’s legacy.
“I’ve been up reading the comments about the interview I did with Lisa Leslie about Kobe Bryant, and I know that if I had only seen the clip that you saw, I’d be extremely angry with me too,” King said in an Instagram video in response to the criticism. “I am mortified. I am embarrassed and I am very angry.”
She added, “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. It’s jarring to me. I didn’t even know anything about it. I started getting calls. … I didn’t know what people were talking about.”
.@WNBA legend @LisaLeslie told @GayleKing that Kobe Bryant’s legacy is “not complicated” for her despite his 2003 rape accusation.
“I don’t think it’s something that we should keep hanging over his legacy.” https://t.co/qj6MVvOaqX pic.twitter.com/9qtVORobLO
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) February 4, 2020
In the newly released statement, CBS acknowledged that the clip shared online “did not reflect the nature and tone of the full interview.”
“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,” CBS said in a statement obtained by Page Six.
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