Robin Roberts: That Jussie Smollett interview 'was a no-win situation for me'

Robin Roberts has taken some heat over her interview with Jussie Smollett. Today Roberts reflected on the interview during an appearance at a daylong event put on by the Cut. Roberts says she had hesitation about the interview and admits she felt pressure not to go too hard on a fellow member of the LGBT community. From Page Six:

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“I’ll be completely honest, I was like I don’t know if I want to do the interview or not,” she said during The Cut’s “How I Get It Done” event at 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge on Monday.

“I said, ‘I don’t want to sit down with him if he’s going to lawyer up,’” the “Good Morning America” host, 58, recalled. “And then I was told, ‘He wants to speak with you,’ [because] he was outraged by people making assumptions about whether it had happened or not.”…

“I’m a black gay woman, he’s a black gay man,” she said. “He’s saying that there’s a hate crime, so if I’m too hard, then my LGBT community is going to say, ‘You don’t believe a brother,’ if I’m too light on him, it’s like, ‘Oh, because you are in the community, you’re giving him a pass.’”

“It was a no-win situation for me,” she explained.

Roberts says she’d have loved to go after Smollett with the claims made by the Osundairo brothers but their allegations (that Smollett had paid them to stage the attack) didn’t break until days after the interview was filmed. From the Hollywood Reporter:

Responding to criticisms to her Smollett interview, including that she was too soft on the actor, Roberts admitted that she would have gone farther with her questioning of the actor if she’d had more of the details that eventually came to light before the segment aired. “It was hurtful, some of the things that were said. I’ll be honest,” said Roberts. “Because I pride myself on being fair. I know how much work went into being balanced about what to ask, to challenge him on certain things.”

She added, “Had I had that information or what the brothers were alleging — heck, yeah, I would have asked that. But it aired that morning [and] we taped it two days ahead of time.”

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I rewatched the interview. The Smollett portions are truly cringe-inducing in retrospect. However, just looking at Roberts’ questions, she does express some doubt about his story throughout the interview. Here are a few of her questions:

  • About the rope: “You hadn’t noticed it before?”
  • “Did you get any kind of description of the attackers?”
  • “Why did you hesitate to want to call the police?”
  • “The vast majority of people have been supportive and loving and understanding and then as time has gone on that there’s no—It’s two-o’clock in the morning, you’re going to Subway, sub-zero…”
  • “The phone. When did you—because as you said it was an accurate account of the timeline, valuable information. When did you make that information available to the police?”
  • Smollett says he didn’t want to hand over his phone. Roberts asks “Why?”

These aren’t bad questions given what Roberts knew the day this was filmed. It’s fair to say she was at least somewhat skeptical.

I think the problem with this segment overall is that, at the beginning and the end, Roberts allows Smollett to talk for several minutes about the attack and what it means. If Roberts had been a bit more skeptical, she wouldn’t have let him ramble in response to questions like, “What do you say to a young gay man?”

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The worst question of the bunch is probably the last one: “If the attackers are never found, how will you be able to heal?” There are a lot of assumptions about who is telling the truth wrapped up in that question. Any sense of skepticism is gone. It’s another chance for Smollett to spin out his tearful story. Given that Roberts had reason to be skeptical, she probably should have saved the socio-cultural grand statements for a follow-up interview.

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