Snoop Dogg: I didn’t threaten Gayle King, but she ‘was very disrespectful towards Kobe Bryant’

Snoop Dogg said Saturday he wasn’t threatening CBS News anchor Gayle King over a recent interview in which she broached the Kobe Bryant rape case following his death last week.

The clarification comes after CBS News President Susan Zirinsky said the network “fully supports” King while vigorously condemning the “reprehensible” threats made against the anchor.

“When I said what I said, I spoke for the people who felt like Gayle was very disrespectful towards Kobe Bryant and his family,” Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., said in a video on Instagram on Saturday.

“Now with that being said, what do I look like, wanting some harm to come to a 70-year-old woman? I was raised way better than that,” the 48-year-old entertainer continued. “I don’t want no harm to come to her, and I didn’t threaten her. All I did was say, ‘Check it out. You out of pocket for what you doing, and we watching you. Have a little bit more respect for Vanessa, her babies and Kobe Bryant’s legacy.'”

King, a co-anchor on “CBS This Morning,” is 65.

The rapper’s latest comments come after he posted an earlier Instagram video in which he appeared to threaten King, telling her to “back off, bitch, before we come get you.” The comment was made amid criticism over her addressing the Bryant rape case.

Oprah Winfrey, who is close to King, said on NBC’s “Today” that the CBS News veteran has been the target of death threats following her interview earlier this week with former WNBA star Lisa Leslie in which King raised the sexual assault charge against Bryant in a 2003 civil case that was ultimately settled.

The controversy was amplified further after former former national security adviser Susan Rice took exception to Snoop Dogg’s threat by posting a warning on Twitter.

“This is despicable,” Rice wrote. “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.”

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

— Susan Rice (@AmbassadorRice) February 8, 2020

Bryant died late last month in a helicopter crash that also killed his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others.

His shocking death has set off waves of tributes to the NBA great, with some of his supporters responding with anger and threats to people who have raised the allegations against Bryant.

Bryant was accused in 2003 of sexually assaulting a Colorado hotel employee. The charges were later dropped after the employee declined to cooperate with prosecutors. She would eventually settle with Bryant outside of court, and Bryant acknowledged in an apology that the woman did not feel that their encounter was consensual.

King evoked that case in the interview with Leslie.

“It’s been said that his legacy is complicated because of a sexual assault charge that was dismissed in 2003, 2004. Is it complicated for you, as a woman, as a WNBA player?” King asked Leslie.

“It’s not complicated for me at all,” Leslie replied. “I just never see — have ever seen him being the kind of person that would be — do something to violate a woman or be aggressive in that way. That’s just not the person that I know.”

“Lisa, you wouldn’t see it, though. As his friend, you wouldn’t see it,” King said.

“And that’s possible,” replied Leslie. “I just don’t believe that.”

She added that the media “should be more respectful at this time.”

King said she has received death threats over the interview.

She was noticeably absent from “CBS This Morning” on Friday as the controversy continued to grow.