Gayle King clapped back at critics of her Jeff Bezos-funded Blue Origin flight by suggesting they take a trip to space themselves.
“I wish people would do more due diligence. And then my question is, have y’all been to space? Have you been to space?” the CBS Mornings anchor said in an interview with Extra.
She dared her critics to “go to space or go to Blue Origin and see what they do and then come back and say, ‘This is a terrible thing.’”
King acknowledged that the 11-minute flight—which she took alongside five other women, including Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez and pop star Katy Perry—was “expensive.” While Blue Origin doesn’t disclose the cost of securing a seat, it requires interested potential astronauts to agree to pay a $150,000 deposit to begin the process.
But King took issue with people dismissing the mission—manned by the first all-female crew since 1963—a mere “ride,” calling it “disrespectful.”
“You never see a man, a male astronaut, who’s going up in space and they say, ‘Oh, he took a ride.’ … It’s always referred to as a flight or a journey,” she said.
Online users and a lineup of celebrities—including Olivia Munn, Amy Schumer, and Olivia Wilde—blasted the crew for what they saw as self-indulgent space tourism.
Munn called the voyage “gluttonous” in an interview with Today: “There are so many other things that are so important in the world right now. What are you guys going to do up in space?”
Perry’s post-flight interview with Good Morning America was also widely mocked online. The singer, still clad in her blue space suit, proclaimed “we weren’t just taking up space, we were making space for the future.”
But TikTok users weren’t having it. “No Katy! It was uber rich women paying for an 11 minute ride,” one user commented.
