CLEVELAND, Ohio -- LeBron James has weighed in on the controversy surrounding Gayle King’s interview with Lisa Leslie, the former WNBA star and a longtime friend of Kobe Bryant.
In case you missed it, the “CBS This Morning” anchor faced criticism this week after the network tweeted a brief clip from a longer interview in which King asked Leslie if Bryant’s legacy is “complicated” because of his rape charge in 2003.
“It’s not complicated for me at all,” Leslie replied, adding that the media should be more respectful now that Bryant is gone.
“It’s like if you had questions about it, you had many years to ask him that. I don’t think it’s something that we should keep hanging over his legacy. I mean, it went to trial,” she said.
King was slammed on social media by celebrities like 50 Cent and Vivica A. Fox for posing the question.
“What do you gain from that? I swear to God, we the worst, we the f–-- worst. We expect more from you, Gayle, don’t you hang out with Oprah?" Snoop Dogg said in a profane and threatening video on his Instagram.
On Thursday, James joined the chorus.
“Protect @LisaLeslie at all cost! You’re a real Superhero!! Sorry you had to through that s*%#!!! We are our own worse enemies! . #Mamba4Life,” the Lakers star posted.
Earlier, King took to Instagram to call out her own network for posting the 90-second clip to social media which, she said, was taken out of context.
“If I had only seen the clip that you saw, I would be extremely angry with me too. 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,” she said.
“I reached out to Lisa — because I know she’s a longtime friend of Kobe’s — to talk about his legacy and their friendship. We had a really wide-ranging interview, talked about many things: his career, his passion, his sense of humor, the way he was mentoring other people, how he was starting his next chapter, it was wide-ranging. And yes, we talked about that court case because that court case has also come up. And I wanted to get Lisa’s take on it as a friend who knew him well, what she thought, where that should stand. It was very powerful when she looked me in the eye, as a member of the media, to say, ‘It’s time for the media to leave it alone and to back off,'” she explained.
King added, “I felt really good about the interview... so, 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. There will be a very intense discussion about that."
King said she had a “friendly relationship” with Bryant and is “mourning his loss just like everybody else.”
In an emailed statement from CBS News, a spokesperson said, “Gayle conducted a thoughtful, wide-ranging interview with LisaLeslie 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.”
You can watch the full interview with Leslie, below