Gayle King to Critics of Her Space Flight: ‘Have You Been?’
Gayle King is “very disappointed” that some people are upset by Blue Origin’s decision to put the gal in galaxy. When Entertainment Tonight asked King about the negative reactions to her April 14 space flight with an all-women crew that included Katy Perry, the CBS Mornings host responded by first defending Blue Origin and arguing that the Jeff Bezos-owned company is trying to better the planet by figuring out how to put waste into space. “Number two, have you been? Have you been?” she added. “If you’ve been and you still feel that way after you come back, please, let’s have a conversation.” Less than a thousand people have been to space in the entirety of human history, so this offer for further dialogue seems a bit exclusive. But some of the criticism of this flight has come from celebrities, for whom commercial space travel is likely more accessible than it is for the average consumer; aside from the fact the rich and famous probably have a better chance of affording commercial spaceflight, they could potentially be invited to take a trip for free, William Shatner-style. (As for Monday’s flight, a Blue Origin spokesperson told CNN that some of the passengers paid for the flight, but declined to say which ones.)
So perhaps King’s “have-you-been” line of questioning is more applicable to the not one, but two famous Olivias who have taken issue with the mission: Olivia Munn pointed out prior to the launch that some people can’t afford eggs and criticized the environmental impact of the “gluttonous” 11-minute trip, while Olivia Wilde shared post-landing photos of Perry and quipping, “Billion dollars bought some good memes, I guess.” Emily Ratajkowski also expressed that she was “disgusted” with the flight, suggesting in a TikTok that it was “beyond parody” to claim that the event was “about Mother Earth” when “you’re going up in a spaceship that is built and paid for by a company that’s singlehandedly destroying the planet.” Although King did not identify anyone by name, she did tell ET that some of the backlash she’s seen has come from people she considers to be her friends.
Meanwhile, King suggested that sexism is at play in some of the discourse surrounding the mission. She argued that people who have been calling her flight a “ride” would never say that about a male astronaut who followed the same flight trajectory. “There was nothing frivolous about what she did,” King said, adding of the criticism in general, “I’m very disappointed and very saddened by it.” Still, she said there have also been positive reactions, noting that “so many” women, girls, and even men have reached out to say that watching her journey has inspired them to think that they can go to space, too. Well, yes … but the topic at hand is not whether people can leave the planet on trips like this, but whether they should. But hey, we’ve never been to space, so maybe we should keep our earth-bound opinions to ourselves.
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