Kobe Bryant's widow speaks for first time as Los Angeles continues to mourn NBA star
Vanessa Bryant thanks fans for their outpouring of support in an emotional online post as the NBA legend is honored at the Staples Center; Jeff Paul reports from Los Angeles.
CBS issued a response to one of its star anchors who was upset about a viral interview clip that sparked outrage among fans of NBA legend Kobe Bryant.
The "CBS This Morning" co-anchor Gayle King slammed her employer for distributing an "out-of-context" clip from an interview she conducted where the sexual misconduct allegation made against Bryant years ago was discussed. In the newly released statement, the network acknowledged that the clip that was shared "did not reflect" the totality of the 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.
CBS did not immediately respond to Fox News for additional comment.
King recently interviewed WNBA icon Lisa Leslie about her relationship with Bryant, and a clip of a particular question about a 2003 rape accusation went viral – and the CBS News star is angry her network isolated the query on social media.
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“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. “I am mortified. I am embarrassed and I am very angry."
“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,” King said.
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King asked Leslie if Bryant’s legacy is complicated by the allegation, and she was quickly vilified over the question that many critics deemed wildly inappropriate when “CBS This Morning” tweeted the clip.
The CBS News anchor said she was advised to ignore the criticism but plans to take a different approach.
“That’s not good enough for me because I really want people to understand what happened here and how I’m feeling about it,” King said. “I reached out to Lisa because I know that she’s a longtime friend of Kobe’s to talk about his legacy and their friendship. We have a really wide-ranging interview, talked about many things, his career, his passion, his sense of humor.”
King added that they did talk about “that court case” because she wanted Leslie’s thoughts on it “as a friend who knew him well.” King said it was very powerful when Leslie looked her in the eye and said it’s time for the media to move on from the narrative.
“During the course of the interview, I asked follow-up questions because I wanted to make sure that her position and perspective were very clear,” King said. “When she said, ‘It’s time to leave it alone,’ I thought that was powerful and insisted that it be in the interview because I thought it put a nice button on that part of the conversation.”
King said she received a “great reaction” when the interview aired but CBS set her up for backlash when it chose what portion to share on social media.
“For the network to take the most salacious part, when taken out of context and put it up online for people who didn’t see the whole interview is very upsetting to me and that’s something I’m going to have to deal with, with them,” King said. ‘There will be a very intense discussion about that.”
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The “CBS This Morning” co-anchor said the “last thing” she wanted to do at this sensitive time is to disparage Bryant.
“I hope people understand that,” she said. “That’s why I’m speaking to you directly.”
CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others died in a helicopter crash last week. He was 41.