Oprah Winfrey tried to talk Gayle King out of begging Jay-Z for an interview, but King’s effort paid off.

The CBS This Morning co-anchor ran into Scott Evans of Access Hollywood earlier this week, where she revealed that her desire to interview Hov was almost shot down by Winfrey, her best friend.

In October, CBS News aired Gayle’s sitdown with Jay-Z, but according to King, the chat almost didn’t happen.

Access Hollywood (YouTube) / Via youtube.com

“You know he doesn’t like to do interviews and I was shameless,” King told Evans at the 2-minute mark of the video abiove.

“I just groveled [so much] that it became embarrassing,” King added. “Even Oprah said, ‘You are making a damn fool of yourself. Stop asking him. He doesn’t want to do it.’ But I couldn’t let it go, because he never said no, no, no – he just kept delaying, delaying, delaying.”

Maybe the delays were because of the 4:44 artist attending stops throughout Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour through the summer, or his Book of Hov grand opening in June. But eventually, King got the 24-time Grammy winner to agree to a career-spanning interview.

“I don’t know why he said yes or why he changed his mind… I’m just grateful that he did,” King said.

One topic that King and Jay-Z covered was the now-viral “$500,000 or a dinner with Jay-Z’ debate,” which the rapper and business mogul put to rest. “You’ve gotta take the money. You’ve got all that in the music for $10.99,” he said. “I wouldn’t tell you to cut a bad deal. Like, take the $500,000, go buy some albums, and listen to the albums.”