Gayle King is looking back on her explosive 2019 interview with R. Kelly in which the disgraced R&B singer vehemently denied allegations about grooming underaged girls.
The CBS Mornings host was a guest on the Wednesday (May 27) episode of Call Her Daddy, and around the one-hour mark of the interview, King revealed that she contacted Kelly’s team one day after the interview taping.
Although the conversation went “off the rails,” with the three-time Grammy winner profusely crying and shouting, King called Kelly’s team to see how the singer-songwriter was doing.
“Because when you're in it, you don't realize how bad it is,” King told Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper. “I knew that it was, I knew that he was angry, but it was only when I looked at that video that I went, ‘Holy shit.’ I didn't realize that it looked that way. So I called the next day to see, ‘Listen, I just wanted to check in.’”
The team shared that rather than Kelly being upset, the vocalist wanted to “thank” King for allowing him to show his vulnerability. Months before the interview, Kelly’s sex crimes and history of predatory behavior were detailed in Lifetime documentary Surviving R. Kelly.
"‘Thank me for what?’” King recalled asking Kelly’s team. “[They said] because you allowed people to see his passion and his pain. I go, ‘Is that what he saw?’ ‘Yes. He wants to thank you.’ I mean, I haven't talked to him since.”
The media personality added that while she would “love” the chance to speak with the singer again, she predicts that he would continue to deny the allegations. The 59-year-old is currently serving a 30-year sentence on multiple convictions of sex trafficking, racketeering and child sex abuse.
King added that she “wasn’t afraid” during the 2019 interview, during which Kelly stood up from his seat and shouted at the camera.
“I really didn't think he was trying to hurt me. And I wasn't done with the interview,” King said. “But I could not have done that if I was just starting out. I would've been totally frazzled, rattled and frazzled, but I wasn’t.”
King made similar comments during a 2019 visit on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, she was intentional in “staying calm” but was concerned that Kelly would “accidentally” hit her.
