Gayle King finally acknowledged criticism that says she is sanctioning America’s new “oligarchy” in the time of Donald Trump by joining socialite Lauren Sanchez on one of Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rockets for an 11-minute trip up into space Monday.
During an interview Friday ahead of the controversial flight, King admitted it was “troubling” to be seen as part of an “ad” for the billionaire Amazon founder and his flashy fiancee, the Daily Mail reported.
King is joining Sanchez, pop star Katy Perry, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and two other women on the 11th human flight for the Blue Origin New Shepard NS-31 rocket. Sanchez, King and Perry have tried to put a feminist spin on the flight because of its all-female crew, even though these women effectively are space-tourism passengers who won’t be piloting the ship, which is fully automated.
Critics say Bezos and Sanchez made a show of publicly embracing Donald Trump’s presidency and appeasing his autocratic tendencies by enjoying a prominent place at his Jan. 20 inauguration with other tech moguls. Prominent journalists also have come after Bezos for his last-minute decision to stop his Washington Post editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris before the Nov. 5 election and by ordering his paper’s editors and writers to move the opinion pages into a rightward direction.
“Listen, it is troubling for me too,” said King, the CBS Mornings co-host. “There have been some questions and some decisions that (Bezos) has made that I’ve actually gone, “huh?”
King has been blasted for appearing to turn her back on her fellow journalists at the Post, some of whom have quit the paper in protest of Bezos’s actions. King’s willingness to take a seat on the rocket, a ride that could be valued in the six figures, has furthermore raised questions about her journalistic integrity and the news values of CBS News, where journalists are not supposed to take freebies.
In her interview with CBS Mornings colleague Vlad Duthiers, King effectively shrugged off those concerns and tried to justify the “historic” nature of the flight.
“But I think in this particular case, I think this is so much bigger than one man and one company,” King said. “I’ve chosen to separate the two. It’s not a zero-sum game.”
“You can do this one the one hand, and this on the other hand. And both things can be true,” she said.
Others have vehemently disagreed with such an argument, with New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose saying this “morally vacuous space stunt should be another nail in the coffin of celebrity feminism.” Others have similarly called the flight a “P.R. stunt” on behalf of Bezos, Sanchez and their brands, and ripped Elle magazine for featuring Sanchez, King, Perry and the rest of the crew on a recent cover.
“You cannot rebrand oligarchy as feminism, especially when the information is in our face every day,” said Internet personality and entrepreneur Blakely Neiman Thornton in an Internet takedown earlier this month of the Elle cover. He called the magazine feature “embarrassing” for everyone involved.
“What’s lower than sponcon (sponsored content) for Jeff Bezos’s pet project with rockets?” Thornton continued, directing his comment at Elle magazine for its cover story on the flight. “I understand that in late-stage capitalism the ruling class is going to buy press, but you cannot rebrand your vanity as altruism. Too much has happened.”
Actor Olivia Munn also wasn’t buying the female-empowerment spin put out by King, Sanchez or Perry. In an interview, she told “Today” show host Jenna Bush Hager that the flight was an excessive, “gluttonous” waste of resources when regular people in America are hurting.
“I know this is probably obnoxious, but like, it’s so much money to go to space, and there’s a lot of people who can’t even afford eggs,” said “The Newsroom” actor, referring to the significant spike in egg prices over the last few months. Munn made her remarks as Trump had begun to upend the global economy and people’s retirement savings by announcing tariffs on most of America’s trading partners.
When Bush Hager tried to find humor and relatability in the way that Perry and Sanchez talked to Elle about how they would take the “glam” on the trip — wearing makeup and eyelash extensions — Munn looked stunned and quipped: “What? They said this out loud?!”
“What’s the point?” Munn asked. “Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride? I think it’s a bit gluttonous.”
