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'I Am So Humbled’ – Gayle King Named One Of Time's 100 Most Influential People

The "CBS This Morning" host was given her own cover, and Ava DuVernay penned the tribute.

Time magazine just released their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world and "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King was pleasantly surprised to see her name on it.

"I am so humbled," King said Wednesday on "CBS This Morning."

Although King is a highly esteemed journalist who received national praise when her notable interview with R. Kelly went viral, she still asked, "Are you sure?" upon discovering she made this year’s list.

"I've been going to [the Time 100] event for the past 10 or 12 years, and I'm just excited to be in the room. Because as you know, there's always somebody you want to meet, somebody you want to talk to. And it's just great to be in the company. So to be one of the honorees is very, very humbling to me. I'm very excited," King said on the news program.

Director Ava DuVernay, who penned King’s tribute for the magazine, called the journalist "one of the all-time great broadcast interviewers."

"What most don't understand about Gayle is that this perfected proximity to others is a superpower that the best journalists possess. To be present, but not centered. To observe. To bear witness. Gayle has long honed this craft," DuVernay wrote in the tribute.

In response to Ava’s tribute, King delivered an emotional message of gratitude on the air.

"I was so touched to read her words," King said as she began to choke up. "I actually had to read it twice. And it just made me think again how much I love this job and I love the people that I do it with. And it was so unexpected to me. You just have no idea what this means to me."

King also said this moment made her think about her father, who had a great love for the news.

"We had to watch the news, and I thought the news was so damn boring, and now here I am doing the news and being honored this way by your peers. I can't even tell you. I can't even – and for Ava to write it. Number one, they don't tell you who's writing it, so when I found out that it was Ava DuVernay, who is a brilliant writer and brilliant director, and what she said – I texted her this morning, I saw it at like 3 o'clock this morning and was hoping she was up – she was not – just to say, Ava, I was so blown away and so moved by what she had to say about me."

And now King can’t wait to stock up on her cover issue of Time.

"I'm going to buy a couple of copies," King added.

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