The back-and-forth comes after an 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.
“Respect the family and back off, bitch, before we come get you,” Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., said in a video flagged by journalist Yashar Ali.
“This is despicable,” she 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.”
Bryant died late last month in a helicopter crash that also killed his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and eight others. His 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 brought up 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.