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Gayle King Says She Wasn't Allowed To Ask R. Kelly About Aaliyah During CBS Interview
Gayle King Says She Wasn't Allowed To Ask R. Kelly About Aaliyah During CBS Interview
Source: CBS

Gayle King Says She Wasn't Allowed To Ask R. Kelly About Aaliyah During CBS Interview

Gayle King Says She Wasn't Allowed To Ask R. Kelly About Aaliyah During CBS Interview Source: CBS

The CBS This Morning co-anchor offers more information on her interview with the R&B singer.

Following her appearance on The Tonight Show with Stephen Colbert last week, Gayle King has now spoken with the New York Times about her interview with R. Kelly.

READ: Aaliyah And R. Kelly’s Annulment Included Agreement To Protect Him From Physical Abuse Charges

King reiterated some of the same statements she made on Colbert in her Times interview but also talked about how her conversation with Kelly came 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," King said. "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."

From there, King talks about the ground rules that were made for the interview, one of which restricted her from asking questions about Aaliyah.

"They didn't want any questions about Aaliyah, which I was fine with," King said. "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...I still feel we had a lot of information to get from R. Kelly."

Earlier this year, Steven Greenberg, Kelly's lawyer, defended the singer and claimed that he never knowingly engaged in sexual acts with underage girls. Greenberg even went so far as to say Aaliyah lied about her age in order to go through with her marriage to Kelly and that he never knew she was underage.

However, an old video interview with Kelly that was released the same year the two married, resurfaced shortly after that shows that he did know Aaliyah's age at the time.

Kelly and Aaliyah's annulment of their marriage had also included an agreement that protected him from physical abuse charges.

Source: New York Times