If you’ve been on social media over the past day, you’ve probably seen a video or meme of CBS News anchor Gayle King’s uneasy expression as she was set to head to space aboard the Blue Origin spacecraft.
As each woman aboard the flight rang the bell before getting into the space capsule, they each had an excited look on their faces. Except for King.
This reaction immediately lit up social media.
“Gayle King is all of us on a Monday,” wrote one user on X.
“I swear to god no one’s ever wanted to go to space less than Gayle King,” wrote another.
Hours after going viral, King took to social media to explain why she looked like that.
“I didn’t realize that I was being photographed at that moment, nor did I realize that my expression looked so terrified. But I was,” she revealed on Instagram. “I just thought, ‘I’m just going to go in and get in my seat and I’m going to do this.’”
She also slammed claims that she didn’t want to make the trip.
“I knew I was always going to do it, although we were told that if you’re going to back out, you have to do so before two minutes and 30 seconds, you have to say, ‘I’m not going to fly,’” she explained.” Well, I knew I wasn’t going to be that guy.”
King did say getting aboard the spacecraft was “a little scary.”
“The memes show that I was apprehensive,” she said. “I tell you, look at the picture when I got off the capsule. That’s the one that matters.”
Video shows King all smiles as she walked out of the capsule throwing her hands up in the air and later kissing the ground.
To add more levity to the situation, she changed her Instagram profile photo to the viral image.
King was one of six women launched into space on Monday, which marked the first all-female flight into space in over half a century. The group included King, singer Katy Perry, journalist Lauren Sánchez, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen and movie producer Kerianne Flynn.
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