Gayle King Says 11-Minute Vanity Mission to Space Was a Reminder to ‘Do Better’

"If everyone could experience the peace we had up there and the kindness…I’ll never, ever, ever forget," King said. Do we think it's a coincidence that kindness exists where people don't?

By Audra Heinrichs  |  April 14, 2025 | 4:43pm
Photo: Screenshot CelebrityEntertainment
Gayle King Says 11-Minute Vanity Mission to Space Was a Reminder to ‘Do Better’

It’s official: Thanks to the first all-woman flight crew’s vanity mission via a billionaire, space and science are now glam. Could you feel that paradigm shift this morning? I know I certainly did.

On Monday, Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez, Gayle King, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist and activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn completed an 11-minute trip to space on a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket brought to you by Jeff Bezos. According to CBS, the six women launched from Van Horn, Texas, flew just above the Kármán line (a boundary at an altitude of 62 miles that is considered the edge of space), and floated for four minutes before their capsule parachuted down to the desert once more.

Gathered to witness this herstoric event in-person were Bezos, Oprah Winfrey, Kris and Khloe Kardashian (see the billion-dollar pattern here?), alongside the other women’s loved ones. When the crew landed, reactions varied from the bizarre to mind-numbingly stupid.

First to exit the capsule was Sánchez, who asked where her babies were after hugging Bezos. Then came King, who shared that Perry did, in fact, sing during the journey (as was promised) but didn’t choose a song from her own discography, rather Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”

“We’d been asking her to sing all the time and she wouldn’t,” King said on the Blue Origin livestream. People asking Perry to sing? I thought only the Democratic Party did that. Apparently, Perry thought “What a Wonderful World” would benefit Earth best. “‘It’s not about me, I wanted to talk about the world,’” King said of Perry’s response. As for what King got from the experience after initially being terrified to join the crew: “For me, it’s such a reminder that we need to do better, be better, as human beings. If everyone could experience the peace we had up there and the kindness…I’ll never, ever, ever forget.” Do we think it’s a coincidence that kindness exists where people don’t?

As for Perry—who, in not making it about herself, revealed the setlist for her low-selling tour—she exited the capsule holding a daisy over her head, before bending down to kiss the ground.

“Daisies are common flowers, but they grow through any condition,” she told reporters. “They grow through cement, cracks, walls. They are resilient, they are strong, they are everywhere. Flowers, to me, are God’s smile, but they are also a reminder of our beautiful Earth. The beautiful magic is everywhere, all around us, even in a simple daisy.” OK!

“This experience is second to being a mom,” Perry added. “That’s why it was hard for me to go because that’s all my love right there, and I have to surrender and trust that the universe is going to take care of me and protect me and also my family and daughter. I am full up from being able to get that gift of being a mom, and to go to space is incredible, and I wanted to model courage, worthiness, and fearlessness.”

Somehow, all the crew members spoke without stutter about the experience after they landed. Frankly, I would be too busy cleaning pee out of my “sexy” flared hem spacesuit. And true to form, they made the journey in full hair and makeup that stayed pristine. Like I said, one small step for women, one giant leap for glam. No word on how much this little joyride cost just yet, but according to King, any critic of the trip (Jezebel, Olivia Munn) just “doesn’t really understand what is happening here.”

“We can all speak to the response we’re getting from young women, from young girls about what this represents,” King told People. Sánchez added that the backlash gets her “really fired up” because of how much the Blue Origin employees love their work.

“I would love to have them come to Blue Origin and see the thousands of employees that don’t just work here but they put their heart and soul into this vehicle,” she told People. “They love their work and they love the mission and it’s a big deal for them.”

Funny how the countless unseen people laboring to make these trips possible are only just being mentioned now…after this one is complete and in answer to justifiable scrutiny. I assume their Elle cover story is coming next month?

 
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