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Gayle King to Critics of Her Space Flight: ‘Have You Been?’
She’s “very disappointed” by negative reactions to Blue Origin’s all-women mission.
“If you’ve been and you still feel that way after you come back, please, let’s have a conversation.” Less than a thousand people have been to space in the entirety of human history, so this offer for further dialogue seems a bit exclusive. So perhaps King’s “have-you-been” line of questioning is more applicable to the not one, but two famous Olivias who have taken issue with the mission: Olivia Munn pointed out prior to the launch that some people can’t afford eggs and criticized the environmental impact of the “gluttonous” 11-minute trip, while Olivia Wilde shared post-landing photos of Perry and quipping, “Billion dollars bought some good memes, I guess.” Emily Ratajkowski also expressed that she was “disgusted” with the flight, suggesting in a TikTok that it was “beyond parody” to claim that the event was “about Mother Earth” when “you’re going up in a spaceship that is built and paid for by a company that’s singlehandedly destroying the planet.” Although King did not identify anyone by name, she did tell ET that some of the backlash she’s seen has come from people she considers to be her friends. “There was nothing frivolous about what she did,” King said, adding of the criticism in general, “I’m very disappointed and very saddened by it.” Still, she said there have also been positive reactions, noting that “so many” women, girls, and even men have reached out to say that watching her journey has inspired them to think that they can go to space, too.
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