In his first interview since his arrest on sex abuse charges, Kelly screamed, jumped from his chair and cried. King remained calm. What was going through her mind?
R. Kelly stood above her in his gray suit, screaming. He jumped out of his chair and pounded his chest, yelling into the camera. Gayle King sat in front of him, just inches away, emanating nothing but calm.
In his first interview since he was charged with sexually abusing four women, three of them underage, the R&B singer spoke with Ms. King of CBS This Morning at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago — and he completely lost hold of his composure.
In the interview, which aired in segments last week, they spoke about his finances, his crumbling reputation in the music industry and whether he has ever had sex with minors.
We asked Ms. King what it was like to be on the other side of that interview. This conversation has been edited and condensed.
[Read our critic’s review of Gayle King’s full primetime interview of R. Kelly on CBS.]
How did the interview come about?
Somebody on his team reached out to me on Thursday [Feb. 28] and asked if I would be interested in talking to him, and I’m like, uh, R. Kelly himself? Yes, I’d be very interested. They said, when would you like to do it? I said, is he available tomorrow? The earliest he could do it would be Tuesday, would you be able to fly to Chicago on Tuesday? I said, count me present. [Mr. Kelly was free on bail, but went back to jail the day after the interview for failure to pay child support. He was released again on Saturday.]
What ground rules did you set up?
They didn’t want any questions about Aaliyah, which I was fine with. I feel we have heard the Aaliyah story. Really, this interview was about R. Kelly’s reaction to the “ Surviving R. Kelly ” documentary and the latest charges, and they said he cannot discuss the latest charges because those are still in court. O. K., fine. I still feel we had a lot of information to get from R. Kelly.
What was going through your mind when he got hysterical?
I could see it escalating, but I didn’t think he was going to jump out of his chair.
