Gayle King has revealed how she felt when the guilty verdict came down in R. Kelly’s sex trafficking trial.
In a new interview, the CBS Mornings co-anchor told Bustle her immediate reaction was “Justice. That’s what I thought.”
King added that some of the testimony in the case was “stomach-churning.”
“The judge said some of the evidence was so disgusting and despicable that they wouldn’t even allow it to be played in court,” King said in the interview published Tuesday. “Let’s just say part of the evidence involved feces. Let’s just say that. It was so stomach-churning.”
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King sat down with Kelly for a tense interview back in 2019. In the televised conversation, the Grammy-winning singer got emotional and stood over her in a domineering fashion.
The CBS News veteran also interviewed survivors of the R&B artist’s abuse, including Azriel Clary.
Clary initially defended Kelly in the interview, but later told CBS she felt pressured by the disgraced singer to say those things.
The day after Kelly was found guilty of racketeering and eight violations of an anti-sex-trafficking law, King told Bustle she checked in with Clary as well as the executive producer of the Lifetime docuseries Surviving R. Kelly.
Later in the interview, King said the R. Kelly story was “difficult” to report, adding that it’s also been challenging covering police killings and other recent news.
“The Gabby Petito story was difficult. The R. Kelly story was difficult,” she said. “Whenever there’s a mass shooting, that’s difficult. You know, Black men being killed by police is very difficult. The vitriol in politics is difficult. Actually, there are a lot of difficult moments.”
