Viewers felt Gayle King and the CBS Mornings crew might have been doing too much during their recent interview.
The group spoke with English actor Jason Isaacs about his role as Timothy Ratliff on The White Lotus.
“I love this show; it’s a pop culture phenomenon. The current Season 3 is no different; it does not disappoint,” Gayle said before introducing a clip from the show.
Isaacs’ character is a wealthy Southerner, and he nailed the accent for the role.
He shared that he learned to achieve the accent after visiting Durham, North Carolina, and studying with a brilliant dialect coach.
Soon after that discussion, Gayle mentioned a “full-frontal” scene that Isaacs did in an episode, which resulted in online debate.
The White Lotus star called out a double standard after Gayle’s CBS Mornings question
“You know, you’re making news because last week we got to see a full-frontal, and it was you, and I was trying to figure out how to ask without being impolite. Was that you, or was that a prosthetic?” she asked Isaacs.
“Because we were debating it,” Vladimir Duthiers said, supporting Gayle’s question.
“A lot of people are debating it. It’s all over the internet, and it’s interesting because-” he began to say before Gayle cut him off.
“You didn’t answer the question,” she blurted, chuckling.
“Well, I’ll tell ya why. Because the best actress this year is Mikey Madison at the Oscars, and I don’t see anybody discussing her vulva, which was on television all the time,” he said.
Isaacs called out the “double standard for men” and mentioned actress Margaret Qualley from The Substance.
“Nobody would dream of talking to her about her genitalia,” he said.
“It’s a bit of a dodge,” Vlad said after Isaacs’ answer.
“It is a dodge because I don’t think that people really want to know how the sausage is made,” Isaacs replied.
Tony Dokoupil attempted to ask further about who works on the prosthetics, prompting Isaacs to continue to shut them down.
“It would be odd when there are characters, and some of the women are naked. You would never dream of discussing their genitalia. Not for a second,” Isaacs told the CBS Mornings crew.
Gayle then switched the questions to discussing Isaacs’ castmate on The White Lotus. However, moments later, Tony mentioned prosthetics again.
“What is your obsession?” Isaacs asked him, causing Gayle to chuckle before Isaacs jokingly reprimanded them for discussing men’s genitalia despite The White Lotus being a great show.
Viewers expressed their frustrations with Gayle and her co-stars during interview
Many viewers felt the CBS Mornings crew, including Gayle and Tony, needed to back off when they tried to joke with Isaacs about whether his full-frontal scene was him or prosthetics.
“Good for him for calling out the double standard,” a commenter wrote.
Another said that “Gayle embarrassed herself. No she shamed herself.” and “seems to have no guardrails and no limits.”
“Hope the guy next to Jason knows he absolutely embarrassed himself,” a commenter said regarding Tony, adding, “Was incredibly cringe-worthy to watch. Ew.”
Yet another commenter also called the interview exchange “Cringy” because all the CBS Mornings stars were “joking” and Isaacs was “being somewhat polite” while attempting to respond thoughtfully.
It’s not the first time Gayle has been criticized for an interview, as some individuals called out her “90s fine” remarks to actor Morris Chestnutt.
Gayle recently came under fire for another segment that appeared on CBS Mornings and made headlines, as they broke the news that she would participate in an upcoming space flight.
The flight is historic as it’s an all-women crew going on the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. Still, Gayle received backlash for participating in something associated with billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin.