The 'Charmed' actress speaks in favor of Oprah Winfrey's best friend after the rapper seemingly threatened the anchor on social media following Kobe Bryant interview controversy.

• Feb 10, 2020

AceShowbiz - Actress Rose McGowan has blasted Snoop Dogg for verbally attacking U.S. newswoman Gayle King after she raised Kobe Bryant's 2003 rape scandal in an interview with a friend of the tragic athlete.

Oprah Winfrey's best friend found herself under fire last week after an excerpt of her TV chat with Women's National Basketball Association star Lisa Leslie was released as a teaser on the CBS network.

In the promo, King quizzed Leslie, one of Bryant's close friends, about his troubled past, during which the Los Angeles Lakers legend was accused of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old hotel employee in Colorado.

The late sports icon was charged with felony sexual assault and apologised to the woman, insisting he thought the encounter was consensual. The criminal case was dismissed in 2004 because the accuser refused to testify in court, although a civil case was settled in 2005.

Many fans were left unimpressed by King's line of questioning so soon after Bryant's death in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020, with 50 Cent and Snoop among those to lash out at the CBS reporter, who has since received death threats over the interview snippet.

In Snoop's online attack, he called King a "funky, dog-haired b**ch" and warned her, "Respect the family and back off, b**ch, before we come get you."

He has since insisted he wanted "no harm to come" to King, but his threatening words didn't sit well with McGowan, who took aim at Snoop and demanded he "stop terrorizing" the TV anchor.

"Truth hurts. Death hurts. Grow the f**k up," she tweeted on Sunday. "Kobe stopped hurting women, so can you."

In the same Twitter post, McGowan insisted Bryant deserved to be praised for acknowledging his mistake by apologising to his accuser.

"You want to know why Kobe Bryant is a hero? He apologized to a hurt young woman," she wrote.

The former "Charmed" star, who was one of the first women to publicly accuse fallen movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of rape as part of the #MeToo movement, had previously admitted it was a "complex" situation to mourn someone held in such high regard as Bryant, while still acknowledging his brush with allegations of sexual misconduct in the past.

"It's okay to hold space for the dead & their victims simultaneously. It's complex," she shared.