Gayle King has seen the memes about the face she made before going to space — and she says everybody was absolutely right about how she was feeling.
“I’m hearing I’ve become a meme because of my facial expressions when I was walking on the bridge to get on the capsule,” King, 70, began in an Instagram video on Monday, April 14, after her 11-minute trip to space. “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, I was.”
The video then cut to one of the memes, which showed a clip of King boarding the capsule with audio of Rihanna singing the line, “I don’t wanna do this anymore” from her song “Unfaithful.”
“I just thought, ‘I’m just gonna go in and get in my seat and I’m gonna do this,’” King continued. “I knew I was always gonna do it. Although we were told that if you’re going to back out, you had to do so before two minutes and 30 seconds. You have to say, ‘I’m not going to fly.’ Well, I knew I wasn’t gonna be that guy.”
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Despite maintaining her resolve to complete the mission, the CBS newscaster admitted that she actually was afraid to board the ship.
“Getting on, it was a little scary. It was a little scary!” she explained. “So, the memes show that I was apprehensive. I tell you, look at the picture when I got off the capsule. That’s the one that matters. That’s the victory speech. That’s the one that matters. I’m so glad to be back on Earth. ‘Welcome home’ has a new meaning.”
In pictures taken after the capsule returned to Earth, King can be seen kissing the ground and raising her arms in praise to the sky. She also revealed that Katy Perry, who was in the capsule as well, sang a bit of “What a Wonderful World” in space.
After the capsule landed, Perry, 40, explained why she chose to sing that song rather than one of her own.
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“I’ve covered that song in the past and, obviously, my higher self is always steering the ship because I had no clue that one day I would decide to sing a little bit of that in space, but I think that it’s not about me, it’s not about singing my songs, it’s about a collective energy in there,” she explained. “It’s about us, it’s about making space for future women, and taking up space and belonging. And it’s about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it. This is all for the benefit of Earth.”
King and Perry were part of an all-female crew that also included Amanda Nguyen, Aisha Bowe, Kerianne Flynn and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sánchez. The trip marked the first time an all-women crew has gone to space since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova embarked on a solo mission in 1963.
