CBS This Morning anchor Gayle King interviewed Miya Ponsetto, the 22-year-old woman known as "SoHo Karen" who was seen attacking and falsely accusing 14-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr. in a now-viral video posted last month, as Blavity previously reported. 

King commenced the interview, which aired Friday morning, by asking what specific evidence made the 22-year-old conclude that Keyon Jr. had her phone. What began as Ponsetto apologizing for the incident, quickly evolved into her lawyer having to cut the interview. 

“What made you think that Keyon [Jr.] had your phone? That’s why I’m confused. Why did you think he had it?” King asked.

Ponsetto responded, “I was approaching the people that had been exiting the hotel because in my mind, anybody exiting is probably… the one that is trying to steal my phone”

She then added that, in hindsight, she would have taken a different approach and tried not to make him feel “inferior.”

“I admit, yes, I could have approached the situation differently — or maybe not yelled at him like that and made him feel… some sort of inferior way and making him feel as if I was, like, hurting his feelings because that’s not my intention. I consider myself to be super sweet. I really never ever meant for it to, like, hurt him or his father,” Ponsetto said.

King pushed back on Ponsetto's “super sweet” self-characterization, asking why she would go to the extreme of attacking someone over a missing phone she wasn’t sure they had.

“How would you feel,” Ponsetto answered. “If you were alone in New York and you lose the one thing that gets stolen from you that has all the access to the only way that you’re able to get back home?”

King responded, “I just don’t think I would randomly attack people in the manner in which you did. When you look at that video, you’re standing there in your leggings and your flip-flops, and it looks like you’re just going nuts, for lack of a better word.”

Later in the interview, Ponsetto awkwardly apologized “sincerely, from the bottom of my heart,” moments before alleging that the boy’s father, Keyon Harrold Sr. assaulted her. She also suggested that the only harm she caused the 14-year-old was limited to verbal abuse, though The New York Times reported that the Arlo hotel confirmed surveillance footage of the Ponsetto attacking him.

Despite Ponsetto’s wishes to move forward with other parts of the interview, King pressed on about her immaturity.

“You are old enough to know better,” the veteran TV journalist said.

Agitated, and visibly upset, the 22-year-old in a “Daddy” cap then ended the interview and motioned to her lawyer to cut the feed.

King later told her co-anchors that Ponsetto ignored counsel from her lawyer frequently during the interview, and refused to listen to their advice to remove the baseball cap. 

On social media, critics went after Ponsetto, labeling her an entitled and dangerous racist.

“Here lies the privilege of ‘SoHo Karen’ as she wears a ‘daddy’ hat to a national television interview with Gayle King and cuts her off with a hand up and ‘enough’ while calling herself a ‘sweet girl,’” Arianna Davis, digital director of O, the Oprah Magazine, tweeted. 

While other social media users joked about how her baseball cap was clear indication that she was being disingenuous.

 

According to the Los Angeles Times, Ponsetto fled New York City and flew back to her home in Piru, California, where she completed the interview with King. She was arrested by Ventura County officers later that same day.

The New York Times reported that Ponsetto initially refused to get out of her car when she was pulled over by police and slammed the door on a deputy before having to be pulled out of the car. Police officials confirmed that she spent Thursday night in county jail and has an extradition hearing coming soon. 

Arlo-Soho-HotelCBS This Morninggayle kingKeyon-Harrold-Jr.Miya Ponsetto