Gayle King tells Stephen Colbert what it was like watching R. Kelly self-destruct, interviewing his girlfriends

Her multi-part interview with R. Kelly for CBS this week was a big enough deal, Gayle King told Stephen Colbert on Thursday's Late Show , that Elton John had just called her in the dressing room. She explained that in the viral image of Kelly standing angrily while she sits calmly, she was mostly trying to keep "Robert" from walking out of the interview. "I never thought that he was going to hurt me or hit me," she said, at least not on purpose.

Colbert asked about Fox News' Jesse Watters mixing her up with Robin Roberts, who had interviewed Jussie Smollett. King laughed and recounted how after Dana Perino corrected Watters on-air, she got Perino's email address and wrote: "'Thank you for letting him know that we're two different people, and could you let the rest of your colleagues know that all black people do not look alike. Could you please just share that?' Yes, I did, I sent that to her."

On Jimmy Kimmel Live, Kimmel couldn't get enough of the R. Kelly bombshells. But "this was the masterstroke," he said. "So to defend himself against allegations of weird and illegal and inappropriate sexual relationships, to prove he's a normal and respectful guy, R. Kelly brought in both of his live-in girlfriends to support him." He showed how that looked, then mashed-up the King interview with Kelly's greatest hit to create "I Believe I Can Lie."

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King said both she and the live-in girlfriends — Azriel Clary, 21, and Joycelyn Savage, 23; Kelly is 52 — thought Kelly was out of the room for that interview, but he was just out of sight, coughing loudly at questions he didn't like. "Both sets of parents are terrified because they believe their daughters have been brainwashed," King told Colbert.

King said she didn't expect Kelly to confess his crimes, "but I did think that, on some level, he would have a moment of reflection, he would have contrition." Instead, she said, "I thought we were witnessing the self-destruction of a man having a breakdown, and that's never a good thing to see. Never." Watch below. Peter Weber