The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has sided with Snoop Dogg’s attack on Gayle King for repeatedly raising Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault charge during an interview with the deceased basketball legend’s close friend, Lisa Leslie.
Delivering the keynote address for the Nation of Islam’s Saviours’ Day 2020 Convention in Detroit, Michigan, on Sunday, Farrakhan justified the Gin and Juice rapper’s sexist attack on the CBS News anchor.
After praising the 41-year-old future Hall of Famer who died in a helicopter crash with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna ‘Gigi’ Bryant, alongside seven other passengers on January 26 for being a good father, the NOI leader addressed the controversy.
“Miss Gayle, you’re my sister. I love you and I admire the good that you’ve done,” he started. “But you were being used on that day to besmirch the memory of a good man, Gayle.”
Snoop Dogg, alongside fellow rapper 50 Cent and a host of other celebrities, called out King for trying to tarnish Bryant’s reputation, particularly when the former basketball star’s family is grieving.
“My brother Snoop was angry… angry with you because what you did was so unnecessary,” Farrakhan said while the crowd applauded.
“I defend the good that Gayle has done in life, but I’m saying to all of you that are in privileged positions with white people, don’t let them use you.”
“Sister Gayle, though I love you and I love Kobe, and I love Snoop, I defend Snoop’s anger. I defend Snoop’s rebuke, and I defend Snoop’s speech.”
Snoop Dogg was widely criticized for his attack on King. Her best friend, Oprah Winfrey, in an interview after the snippet of the video was released, revealed King was not doing well amid the backlash and had received death threats.
Adding he was, however, not in support of women being called the ‘b-word’, Farrakhan continued: “I defend him from the Quran, for the Quran says when somebody feels hurt and they use hurtful speech, hurtful speech is justified when you hurt like you hurt. He was hurt and we are hurt.”
He added: “But I pray for you, sister Gayle. I pray that you will recover that lost sense of commitment to your people out of which you came.”
In the wake of the backlash, King, in a video on social media on February 6, blamed CBS for editing just that part of a very long interview. CBS subsequently took blame for the incident, admitting the video “did not reflect the nature and tone” of the entire interview.
“I know that if I had only seen the clip that you saw, I would be extremely angry with me too. I am mortified. I’m embarrassed and I am very angry,” King said. “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.”
Snoop Dogg also later apologized for attacking her in a video on Instagram.
“Two wrongs don’t make no right. When you’re wrong, you gotta fix it,” the rapper said in the February 12 video. “So with that being said, Gayle King, I publicly tore you down by coming at you in a derogatory manner based off of emotions. Me being angry at questions that you asked …overreacted. I should have handled it way different than that.”
In the caption for the video, the rapper revealed he was apologizing after receiving some advise from his mother.
“I was raised way better than that, so I would like to apologize to you publicly for the language that I used and calling you out of your name and just being disrespectful,” he continued.
“I didn’t mean for it to be like that, I was just expressing myself for a friend who wasn’t there to defend himself.
“A lot of people look up to me and they love me and they appreciate me, so I want to let them know that anytime you mess up, it’s okay to fix it, it’s okay to man up and say that you’re wrong. I apologize. Hopefully, we can sit down and talk privately. Have a good day.”
