April 17, 2025
Gayle King is responding to criticism over the all-woman Blue Origin spaceflight she took half in.
Gayle King addresses the backlash she and her fellow Blue Origin passengers have confronted following their temporary spaceflight on April 14.
The CBS Mornings anchor spoke out throughout an April 16 interview with ET, defending the all-women spaceflight she joined alongside Katy Perry and explaining why she is “very disenchanted and really saddened” by the fallout. The celebrity-filled mission, supported by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, has drawn criticism from a number of, together with stars like Amy Schumer, Olivia Wilde, and Olivia Munn—however King believes a lot of it stems from a lack of know-how and analysis.
“That is what bothers me as a result of I’ve definitely learn a few of the issues on-line, coming from people who I do know, that I like, that I take into account pals,” King stated in regards to the well-known faces criticizing the spaceflight. “And that is what I’d say to that. House will not be an either-or. It’s a both-and since you do one thing in house, doesn’t imply you’re taking something away from Earth.”
The morning information host supplied her rationalization of how Bezos is reportedly investing his billion-dollar internet value into in the case of house exploration, and in response to King, it’s to make our planet higher.
“What you’re doing in house is making an attempt to make issues higher right here on Earth,” she stated. “What Blue Origin needs to do is take the waste right here and determine a technique to put it in house to make our planet cleaner.”
King additionally pushed again in opposition to these downplaying the 11-minute journey she took with Perry, Lauren Sánchez (Bezos’ fiancée), Amanda Nguyen, Aisha Bowe, and Kerianne Flynn, insisting it was greater than only a “trip” and needs to be acknowledged as a authentic spaceflight.
“Please don’t name it a trip. That isn’t a friggin’ trip,” King quipped. “Each time a person goes up, you could have by no means stated to an astronaut, ‘Boy, what a trip.’ We duplicated the identical trajectory that Alan Shepard did again within the day, just about. Nobody known as {that a} trip. It was known as a flight. It was known as a journey.”
She continued, “As a result of a trip implies that it’s one thing frivolous or one thing that’s lighthearted. There was nothing frivolous about what we did and the machine that we have been on and what it took for the individuals to get that machine up and working, to get us up and get us again down safely.”
On the finish of the day, King is pleased with what she achieved and sees the mission as a trailblazing second—one which she hopes will encourage younger women watching to dream greater.
“What it’s doing to encourage different girls and younger women, please don’t ignore that,” she stated. “I’ve had so many ladies and younger women attain out to me, and males too, by the best way, males too, that say, ‘Wow, I by no means thought I may do this, however I see you doing it’ at this stage of my life. Who would have thunk it? Not me.”
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