Susan Rice tells Snoop Dogg to ‘back the f*** off’ after he lashed out at Gayle King for Kobe Bryant rape questions
‘You come for Gayle King, you come against an army. You will lose, and it won’t be pretty’
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Snoop Dogg is facing a backlash after he criticised CBS anchor Gayle King for asking questions about rape claims against late NBA star Kobe Bryant.
The rapper spoke out after watching King ask WNBA star Lisa Leslie about the historical accusations against Bryant during a longer interview.
In 2003, a 19-year-old woman accused Bryant of raping her in a hotel room while she was working as a front desk clerk at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera in the Rocky Mountains town of Edwards, Colorado.
Prosecutors ended up dropping the sexual assault case against the player in 2004 after the woman declined to testify.
“Respect the family and back off—before we come get you,” Snoop said in response to King’s interview, in a video that also fired a volley of expletives at the TV host.
But former US ambassador Susan Rice launched a scathing criticism of Snoop’s comments and demanded he “back the f*** off”.
“This is despicable,” she tweeted. “Gayle King is one of the most principled, fair and tough journalists alive. Snoop, back the **** off. You come for @GayleKing, you come against an army. You will lose, and it won’t be pretty.”
Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were part of a group of nine people who were killed last month in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.
Maggie Haberman, White House correspondent for the New York Times, tweeted: “I hadn’t been following this but this is how Gayle King was attacked for raising the issue of the past Kobe Bryant rape allegation in an interview posted devoid of context.
“In the past year she’s also been screamed at on camera by R. Kelly for asking about abuse. Unsettling.”
Following Snoop’s post, Oprah Winfrey claimed that King had begun receiving death threats.
“She is not doing well,” an emotional Winfrey said during a TV appearance. “She is not doing well because she now has death threats and has to now travel with security. She is feeling very much attacked.”
“She’s not doing well and feels that she was put in a really terrible position,” she continued. “Because that interview had already ran and in the context of the interview, everyone seemed fine, including Lisa Leslie.”
She also said that King “hasn’t slept in two days”.
“Anybody can criticise anything, but the misogynistic vitriol to the point where it is dangerous to be in the streets alone ...” she said, trailing off. “Because it’s not just the people who are attacking. It’s the other people who feel like they can take that message and do whatever they want.”
King later expressed anger at her CBS This Morning bosses for releasing what she felt was a “salacious” and “out of context” clip of her interview with Leslie.
CBS News said in a statement Thursday that King “conducted a thoughtful, wide-ranging interview” with Leslie and that the clip that was posted “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,” a spokesperson said in the statement.
At the time of the allegations, Bryant said, “Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognise now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did.”