On Friday, CBS This Morning aired Gayle King’s interview with Miya Ponsetto, the “SoHo Karen” who was arrested (hours after the interview took place) after falsely accusing a Black teenager of stealing her phone. “I don’t… racism is… how is one girl accusing a guy about a phone a crime?” Ponsetto said at one point. In another, she snapped “enough” at King, who was praised for calmly dismantling the Daddy hat-wearer.
CBS This Morning aired the rest of King’s “exclusive interview” on Monday. “I had noticed my phone had been missing, so I just approached the hotel manager, asked him if he could kindly just check the footage,” Ponsetto recalled. “In my opinion, I was, like, ‘OK, any person walking down could possibly be the person that might’ve had my phone.’ I wasn’t racial profiling whatsoever. I’m a woman. I’m Puerto Rican. I’m a woman of color. I’m Italian, Greek, Puerto Rican.” King asked whether that means “you can’t be racist because you’re saying you’re a woman of color? Is that what you mean?” Ponsetto replied, “Exactly,” causing a bewildered King to say, “I would disagree with that.”
Toward the end of the contentious chat, King asked Ponsetto what she thought when she saw the video of herself attacking 14-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr. “You already asked me that. You already asked me that at the beginning of the interview,” she responded. “I’m not going over it again. “I would like to have a real interview with real questions and real heart and real sincere apologies. Let 2021 be the moment of healing. Seriously.”
King also spoke to the victim’s parents, Kat Rodriguez and Keyon Harrold Sr., who called Ponsetto’s apology “as genuine as when she shushed you. It said a lot. I have an issue with the idea of entitlement versus character. It’s all been tragically consistent.” The jazz musician said that if he acted the way she had, “I’d be in jail now. If I had hurt her in any way, I’d be in jail now. We wouldn’t even be able to have this conversation. As a Black man, every day I walk outside, I have to play the perfect game — almost like doing a no-hitter — just to be believed.” As for Ponsetto, who was charged with with attempted robbery, grand larceny, acting in a manner injurious to a child, and two counts of attempted assault over the weekend, claiming that she wasn’t racial profiling, Harrold Sr. told King, “No one has to say the N-word for something to be an act of racism.”
You can watch the rest of the interview below.
WATCH: The parents of the 14-year-old who was allegedly attacked by Miya Ponsetto & wrongly accused of stealing her phone, are speaking out to @GayleKing. @KeyonHarrold and @iamkatrodriguez react to Miya's apology, her arrest and tell us how their son is coping. pic.twitter.com/x4xgRpUk2v
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) January 11, 2021