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Oprah Winfrey Says Gayle King Is Receiving Death Threats Over That Kobe Bryant Interview


Oprah Winfrey is defending best friend Gayle King in the wake of her controversial interview about the late Kobe Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash in January.

On February 5, King received backlash from viewers for asking WNBA star Lisa Leslie about a sexual assault accusation made against Bryant in 2003. For the CBS This Morning segment on Bryant’s legacy, King asked Leslie if she felt, as a woman and a basketball player, that the case complicated his contributions. “It’s not complicated for me at all,” Leslie responded. “I have [never] seen him being the kind of person that would do something to violate a woman or be aggressive in that way. That’s just not the person that I know.

“I think the media should be more respectful at this time,” Leslie continued. “It’s like, if you had questions about it, you’ve had many years to ask him that. I don’t think it’s something that we should keep hanging out his legacy.”

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After an onslaught of furious reactions from fans and celebrities like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, King took to Instagram to explain that CBS had edited the interview in a way she did not approve of. “I know that if I had only seen the clip that you saw, I’d be extremely angry with me too,” King said on IGTV. “I am mortified, I am embarrassed, and I am very angry.

“For the network to take the most salacious part, when taken out of context, and put it online for people who didn’t see the whole interview is very upsetting to me. That’s something that I’ll have to deal with with them,” she said. “There will be a very intense discussion about that.”

On February 7, Oprah Winfrey—King’s longtime friend—gave an update on the situation on the Today show.

“She is not doing well,” a tearful Winfrey revealed. “She has now death threats, has to now travel with security, and she’s feeling very much attacked. You know, Bill Cosby is tweeting from jail.

“In the context of the interview, everyone seemed fine, including Lisa Leslie,” Winfrey continued, defending King’s line of questioning. “And it was only because somebody at the network put up that clip. And I can see how people would obviously be very upset if you thought that Gayle was just trying to press to get an answer from Lisa Leslie.” Winfrey also warned against “misogynist vitriol” and online attacks.

“Obviously all things pass, she will be okay,” Winfrey said. “But she hasn’t slept in two days.”





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Aidy Bryant Is Living Her Best Life With Hulu's Shrill


Annie has an epiphany at a “Fat Babe Pool Party,” where she sees women of all shapes, sizes, and colors enjoying themselves without a care in the world. It leads to one of the most poignant monologues in the show. “I’ve wasted so much time and energy and money…for what? For what?” Annie says to her roommate, Fran (Lolly Adefope), and a new friend they meet at the pool party. “I’m fat. I’m fucking fat. Hello? I’m fat!”

Bryant experienced a similar “a-ha” moment in her own life. “At a certain point, after all the dieting, weird exercise programs, or Weight Watchers—all these different things that I had tried—I didn’t look any different,” she says. “I didn’t super care, but people were telling me that I was supposed to. So I was like, ‘I’m going to wash my hands of this.’ I just started trying to be healthy for myself and put all that energy into trying to achieve my dreams.”

The pursuit of those dreams first took Bryant to Chicago, where she attended Columbia College and became a member of the famed Second City improv group (Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Stephen Colbert are also alumni). The change of scenery—Bryant grew up in Phoenix, Arizona—did wonders for her, both personally and professionally.

“I went to a sporty high school with a lot of very thin, very athletic girls. I always felt like, ‘I don’t fit in, and I should, and that’s what matters,'” she says. “Then I went to Chicago and met these girls who were big, like I was, and fashionable and had boyfriends. They didn’t seem encumbered by their own thinking of themselves. I remember being like, ‘Well, I want to be like them.’ That was a big game-changer for me.”

Not everyone in Chicago was enlightened, of course. Bryant says the first few talent agents she met had limited ideas about where her career could go. “They were basically like, ‘Look, you know, there’s not a lot of roles for your type,'” she says. “At the time, I think I was 21 or 22, they would send me out for mom parts in, like, Walmart commercials where it was like, ‘This is a mom with three kids.’ I think because of my body type they were like, ‘Oh, she’s a mom,’ which is wild.”



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Shrill Trailer: Watch Aidy Bryant Take on Fat-Shamers


Stop what you’re doing, people: Hulu just dropped a new trailer for its upcoming series Shrill, based on the popular book by Lindy West. The six-episode series stars Aidy Bryant as Annie, a plus-size writer trying to navigate life amidst fat-shaming strangers and passive-aggressive relatives. Her world opens, though, when she attends a body-positive event called the “Fat Babe Pool Party.” It’s there where Annie gains the confidence to live life on her own terms—regardless of what people think.

Before the party, Annie is stuck in a rut. She’s hooking up with a guy who makes her leave his house through the backdoor; she’s an assistant calendar editor at a publication but dreams of writing feature stories; and she’s following a diet called the “Thin Menu,” which has her subsisting on pale, unappetizing pancakes (if you can even call them that) and a handful of almonds every few hours.

But there’s a shift after Annie attends the “Fat Babe Pool Party.” She demands more respect from that aforementioned hookup, starts loving her body more, and gets ahead at work by self-publishing a story about body image, which eventually goes viral. (But at a cost: The article makes her the target of a fat-shaming troll, who leaves her disparaging messages in a sea of positive comments. Been there, girl.)

Watch the full first trailer for yourself, below:

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Luka Jones, Lolly Adefope, John Cameron Mitchell, and Julia Sweeney star alongside Bryant in Shrill. Here’s the official synopsis from Hulu: “A fat young woman who wants to change her life — but not her body. Annie is trying to start her career while juggling bad boyfriends, a sick parent, and a perfectionist boss.”

The series is executive produced by Elizabeth Banks and Lorne Michaels and features Lindy West as a writer and producer. All six episodes will debut March 15 on Hulu.



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