Snoop Dogg apologizes to Gayle King after threatening her over Kobe Bryant question

Snoop Dogg was one of several vocal critics of CBS reporter Gayle King for her interview with Lisa Leslie after Kobe Bryant’s death.

On Wednesday he apologized to King over his reaction.

King’s interview of Leslie

As part of a broad interview in the weeks following Bryant’s Jan. 26 death in a helicopter crash, King asked Leslie — a basketball great and friend of Bryant’s — about the late Los Angeles Lakers legend’s rape case in Colorado early in his career. Bryant was arrested on a felony sexual assault charge in 2003 that was eventually dropped when his accuser declined to testify.

Leslie responded to King’s question about whether the incident complicated her view of Bryant (3:42, above) by saying that she had “never seen him be the kind of person that would do something to violate a woman or be aggressive in that way.”

When pressed by King if the question was an appropriate one, Leslie responded that “the media should be more respectful.”

Backlash over question

The interview drew anger from many of Bryant’s fans and some in the black community who viewed King’s broach of the subject as a betrayal.

Snoop’s criticism via a since-deleted Instagram video last week included calling King a “funky dog-head bitch” before signing off by threatening to “come get you.”

Snoop’s apology

For that, he apologized on Wednesday.

Other critics of King

Snoop wasn’t the only celebrity last week to take on King for the interview.

LeBron James chimed in on Twitter.

So did 50 Cent.

There were many other critics.

The ordeal prompted King’s friend Oprah Winfrey to come to her defense after she claimed that King was “not doing well” in part because of death threats over the interview.

King has not responded to Snoop’s apology as of the time of this post.

Why the backlash to begin with?

The incident raised questions about how the darker sides of public figures’ pasts should be handled in the wake of their deaths, with the tragedy of Bryant’s alongside his 13-year-old daughter Gianna’s intensifying the rhetoric.

With Bryant being a deified figure among his most ardent fans, some argued that case shouldn’t be brought up at all. Others argued that there’s a time to talk about the case, but not in the emotional days and weeks after his sudden death.

Others argued that Bryant’s past is what it is, and the record should reflect all the realties, good and bad. To ignore the sexual assault charge would amount to a dereliction of journalistic duty.

With emotions raw in the aftermath of Bryant’s death, a disconnected society that views these conversations primarily through the lens of social media and anger at traditional media the norm, the backlash against King is symbolic of greater issues during turbulent times.

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