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Fox News' Jesse Watters Confuses Gayle King For Robin Roberts Saying She Redeemed Herself After ‘Jussie Smollett Fiasco’

The host had to be corrected by a colleague live on-air.

During Wednesday’s broadcast of Fox News’ The Five, the co-hosts discussed the CBS This Morning interview with R. Kelly Jesse Watters spent gave a back-handed compliment to Gayle King for “totally redeeming herself” after the Jussie Smollett interview.

There’s only one problem: Robin Roberts interviewed Smollett, not Gayle King.

The Fox News co-hosts were talking about Kelly’s emotional outburst during his sit-down interview with King. Although Kelly angrily jumped up from his seat and beat on his chest, King maintained her composure.

Although the Fox hosts were trying to give King her due props for the interview, the conversation quickly became very uncomfortable when Jesse Watters confused King for another Black female journalist.

The exchange went as follows:

Jesse Watters: Hats off to Gayle King, for totally redeeming herself after the [Jussie] Smollett fiasco.

Juan Williams: Janet, I, you know...

Dana Perino: That was not Gayle King.

Watters: Oh. I knew that.

[laughter]

Perino: Robin Roberts did the Smollett interview.

Williams: One of the things that I think lots of people...

Watters: Sorry for Robin Roberts out there.

Williams: Go right ahead, Jesse. It's cool.

Watters: I apologize.

Watters was trying to reference the Good Morning America interview between Jussie Smollett and Robin Roberts, who faced criticism after he was accused of staging the Chicago attack against himself.

The mix-up was not the first instance wherein Watters said something offensive on air. He was heavily criticized by people on Twitter once the clip went viral.

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