Snoop Dogg apologized to journalist Gayle King after calling her a "dog-haired bitch" and telling her to "back off, before we come get you," after she brought up the rape allegation against Kobe Bryant in an interview following the basketball player's death.
“Two wrongs don’t make no right," said Snoop Dogg, in the video posted to his Instagram account on Wednesday night. "When you’re wrong, you gotta fix it."
"Gayle King, I publicly tore you down by coming at you in a derogatory manner based off of emotions. Me being angry at questions that you asked," Snoop Dogg said, adding that he'd "overreacted."
"So I would like to apologize to you publicly for the language that I used and calling you out of your name and just being disrespectful," he said.
"I accept the apology and understand the raw emotions caused by this tragic loss," said King in a statement Thursday night, adding that she was sorry she hurt people. "As a journalist, it is sometimes challenging to balance doing my job with the emotions and feelings during difficult times," she said.
The apology to King came a week after Snoop Dogg first posted a now-deleted video on Instagram, where he slammed the journalist when a clip of her interview with WNBA player Lisa Leslie went viral.
In the CBS interview about Bryant's life, King asked his close friend Leslie about the 2003 rape allegation against him. The sexual assault charge did not go to trial, and Bryant released a statement acknowledging that while he believed the encounter was consensual, "I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did."
.@WNBA legend @LisaLeslie told @GayleKing that Kobe Bryant's legacy is "not complicated" for her despite his 2003 rape accusation. "I don't think it's something that we should keep hanging over his legacy." https://t.co/qj6MVvOaqX
The This Morning host asked Leslie: "Is it complicated for you as a woman, as a WNBA player?"
Leslie said it was not, outlining that the violent allegations against Bryant were "just not the person that I know."
"But Lisa, you wouldn’t see it though," said King in the interview. "As his friend, you wouldn’t see it."
The clip ended with Leslie replying: "I think that the media should be more respectful at this time."
King received a lot of criticism for the interview, with many saying she was tearing down a black man who was no longer alive to defend himself. Snoop Dogg's response was the most high-profile and drew even more attention to the clip.
"Gayle King, out of pocket for that shit, way out of pocket," said Snoop in his Instagram video posted last week.
“What do you gain from that? I swear to God, we the worst, we the fucking worst. We expect more from you, Gayle — don’t you hang out with Oprah?
This video of Snoop threatening @GayleKing is disgusting Referring to Gayle he says: "Funky dog head bitch…respect the family and backoff. Before we come get you.” Seeing very few people defending Gayle...I know that if she were a white anchor she would have much more support
“Why you all attacking us? We your people. You ain’t coming after fucking Harvey Weinstein asking him dumb-ass questions. I get sick of you all.
"Funky, dog-haired bitch, how dare you try and tarnish my motherfucking homeboy’s reputation, punk motherfucker," Snoop Dogg said.
“Respect the family and back off, bitch, before we come get you," he said.
That evening, King posted an Instagram live video addressing the outrage, although she did not mention Snoop Dogg specifically. In it, she blamed CBS for editing the 30-minute interview down to just a short tweet. (It aired in full on CBS.)
CBS did not respond to a request for comment.
“I know that if I had only seen the clip that you saw, I’d be extremely angry with me too," King said.
"I am mortified, I am embarrassed, and I am very angry. Unbeknownst to me, my network put up a clip from a very wide-ranging interview totally taken out of context and when you see it that way it’s very jarring."
King's BFF, Oprah Winfrey, tearily told Today the following day that King was "not doing well because she now has death threats."
.@Oprah emotionally responds to backlash her friend Gayle King received over King’s recent interview about Kobe Bryant with WNBA legend Lisa Leslie: “She is not doing well because she has now death threats.”
"Anybody can criticize anything, but the misogynistic vitriol to the point where it is dangerous to be in the streets alone..." said Winfrey, trailing off.
Other high-profile friends came out in support of King, with former national security adviser Susan Rice tweeting: "Snoop, back the **** off."
This is despicable. Gayle King is one of the most principled, fair and tough journalists alive. Snoop, back the **** off. You come for @GayleKing, you come against an army. You will lose, and it won’t be pretty. https://t.co/nUxcYCLS62
Snoop Dogg wrote on Instagram that he chose to apologize after a "talk with my momma."
"I didn’t mean for it to be like that," he said in the video apology. "I was just expressing myself for a friend that wasn’t here to defend himself. A lot of people look up to me and they love me and they appreciate me, so I want to let them know that anytime you mess up, it’s OK to fix it. It’s OK to man up and say that you’re wrong."