Gayle King defends Blue Origin space flight after backlash

CBS host Gayle King responded to the backlash over the Blue Origin space flight on Tuesday and suggested the all-female crew was being held to a different standard than men who’ve been to space.

The journalist and talk show host was part of a historic flight on Monday that also carried Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, pop star Katy Perry, film producer Kerianne Flynn, NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen.

The rocket landed safely after roughly a 10-minute flight. The high-profile trip drew some criticism from those who questioned if the brief flight was a worthwhile use of resources.

King responded to the backlash in comments to Entertainment Tonight on Tuesday, where she compared the Blue Origin flight to the historic space flight taken by American astronaut Alan Shepard in 1961.

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“Have you been?” King scolded critics.

“Please don’t call it a ‘ride,’” she added, claiming people don’t use this term when talking about men going into space. 

“We duplicated the same trajectory that Alan Shepard did back in the day, pretty much. No one called that a ‘ride,'” King said. “It was called a flight, it was called a journey.”

“There was nothing frivolous about what we did,” she added.

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“I’m very disappointed and very saddened by it,” the CBS host continued. “And I also say this, what it’s doing to inspire other women and young girls, please don’t ignore that.”

She also addressed liberal critics who complained about the environmental impact, saying that Bezos’ mission with Blue Origin was to discover if the rocket would be able to take waste from Earth into space to “make our planet cleaner.”

“Space is not an either/or. It’s a both/and. And because you do something in space doesn’t mean you’re taking anything away from Earth,” King argued. 

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Model Emily Ratajkowski was one of several celebrities who bashed the flight on social media, calling it, “beyond parody.”

“You say that you care about Mother Earth, and it’s about Mother Earth, and you go up in a spaceship that is built and paid for by a company that is single-handedly destroying the planet,” Ratajkowski posted to TikTok. “Look at the state of the world and think about how many resources went into putting these women into space. For what? I’m disgusted.”

King previously told critics at a press conference on Monday that anyone bashing the flight “doesn’t really understand” the historical significance of the space flight.

“We can all speak to the response we’re getting from young women, from young girls about what this represents,” she added.

Despite her sharp words to critics, King said she feels that for the most part the reaction has been positive.

“This is exciting for so many people,” she told Entertainment Tonight.