Gayle King Recalls Her Explosive R. Kelly Interview: “I Thought He Might Accidentally Hurt Me”

Seven months after her explosive interview with R. Kelly, Gayle King is ready to set the record straight about the bizarre experience. On Thursday night, the veteran journalist stopped by Showtime’s Desus & Mero, where she was asked about how she handled “R. Kelly wildin’ the fuck out” on camera. King insisted that while she wasn’t scared of the singer, who has since been charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse in New York and Chicago, she was worried that “he might accidentally hurt” her with his manic reactions. “I really think that we were watching him having a breakdown in real time,” she told hosts Desus Nice and The Kid Mero.

A few minutes into their discussion, Mero brought up King’s March interview with Kelly. During the heated back-and-forth, the singer insisted that his accusers profiled in Lifetime docuseries Surviving R. Kelly are “lying,” and he later stood up and yelled down at King, who remained committed to interrogating his story. “You are an unflappable master interviewer,” Mero said on Thursday night. “You had R. Kelly wildin’ the fuck out. Like screaming, going bonkers.”

“What was that experience like?” asked Desus, adding that “no one has done that” to them. “No one’s done that to me, either,” replied King. “I never thought that he was gonna hurt me, guys. But when he was doing this,” she said, miming a punching motion, “I thought he might accidentally hurt me. And I was worried about that. Because you could tell, he could hit hard.”

King went on to say that as Kelly yelled, he began “spitting,” and “it was flying all over the place.” Pointing to her bottom lip, the CBS This Morning anchor explained, “His spit fell on my lip right here.” Desus and Mero were appropriately horrified. “I know. That’s what I said,” recalled King. “So I just sat there like this thinking, ‘I don’t want to move.’ If somebody does that to you, you can just very gracefully or discreetly go like that, but I knew I couldn’t make any sudden movements because he was very amped up, as you see.”

“I really think that we were watching him having a breakdown in real time,” she continued. “I really do. Somebody said, ‘Oh, Gayle. He played you. He was just faking.’ I do not think that was a fake. I don’t.”

Desus joked that the interview “gave us fire memes,” and King laughed, saying, “I never thought I’d be a meme.” But she quickly got serious again. “If that had happened to me younger, I think I would have been very afraid,” said King. “But I really wasn’t. Because I didn’t think he wanted to hurt me.”

Watch Gayle King discuss her interview with R. Kelly in the clip above.

Where to stream Desus & Mero