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The president of the CBS News network denounced on Sunday a “reprehensible” comment by the famous rapper Snoop Dogg that seemed to threaten a news anchor after an interview that referred to an alleged case of abuse by the late star of basketball Kobe Bryant
Bryant died along with his daughter and seven other people in a helicopter crash on January 26 in California.
Since then, references to an accusation of sexual abuse in 2003 against him have provoked fury reactions from fans.
CBS, Gayle King and the interview
Snoop Dogg’s harangue on social media followed an interview that Gayle King, host of “CBS This Morning,” had about Bryant with Lisa Leslie, a former female professional basketball star player.
In that interview, King seemed to pressure Leslie on the 2003 case, while Leslie portrayed his friend as someone who “never was like that,” and “would never do anything to rape a woman.”
An angry Snoop Dogg then posted online a video full of obscenities, calling King a “funky dog with a dog’s head.” In addition, he added: “Respect the family and step back, bitch, before we go looking for you.”
CBS President Susan Zirinsky called Dogg’s attack “reprehensible,” and added in a statement support for “Gayle King and his integrity as a journalist.”
After the exchange, King has received multiple death threats, according to his friend Oprah Winfrey, American TV star host.
“He is not having a good time,” Winfrey said Friday on NBC, adding that he has to move with custody because of threats.
She was also defended by presenter Susan Rice, a former national security adviser, who responded to Dogg to back down, and that if she didn’t, she would lose.
King herself posted two videos saying that the interview had been edited in a clip that deformed the true tone of the questions.
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