Megny Kelly is not having a happy Halloween.
Kelly has reportedly hired an attorney amid reports that NBC News might cancel Megyn Kelly Today.
Kelly has apologized twice this week for her Halloween-related blackface comments, remarks which have been publicly condemned by her NBC colleagues, including network chairman Andrew Lack, as well as the quick-to-pounce, virtue-signalling social justice cohort on Twitter.
In the attempt to reinvent herself from a hard news journalist to daytime diva on the 9 a.m. Eastern Today show franchise, Megyn Kelly faced a fundamental and perhaps insurmountable challenge. The ex-corporate lawyer fundamentally lacks a television constituency.
Liberals among the current audience, on social media, and the majority of journalists who work as TV critics, simply won’t accept her on the NBC daytime platform because of her Fox News Channel resume. More conservative viewers haven’t forgiven her for turning FNC’s Kelly File into an anti-Trump and Never Trump forum.
Internally, she seems to enjoy minimal backing from her co-workers, even before this latest controversy.
When Megyn Kelly Today show debuted in September 2017, the host insisted that the show would be a politics-free zone. She did, however, quickly jump on the #MeToo bandwagon — which included reporting on alleged sexual harassment scandals within NBC such as the one that engulfed Matt Lauer — perhaps as an opportunistic way to stabilize her daypart lackluster ratings.
Related story:
Megyn Kelly Weighs In on Brett Kavanaugh Amidst Reports That She is ‘Taking Down’ NBC
According to various news reports, Kelly — who was absent from the studio this morning and won’t appear tomorrow either — may switch back to politics or even leave NBC altogether.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
“Megyn Kelly is expected to wind down her 9 a.m. Today show hour by the end of the season, a source close to the situation tells The Hollywood Reporter. Sources tell THR that Kelly has met with network executives in recent weeks to discuss the future of the show and expressed a desire to cover more news and politics. It’s unclear what NBC News would put in place of Kelly’s show. But the discussions are at least an acknowledgement that the experiment is not working and that Kelly would prefer to be covering more news as she did with the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.”
THR separately reported that Kelly has lawyered up.
“…[O]n Wednesday, Kelly hired attorney Bryan Freedman, one of Hollywood’s top talent-side litigators. The move is a sign that she is gearing up for a fight with NBC that could lead to her exit.”
Mediaite suggests that NBC may be trying to extricate itself from Megyn Kelly’s three-year, $69 million contract.
“The question asked here is not whether Kelly’s comments, which were both offensive and completely out of touch, are worthy of condemnation — they are. The question is why her network appears to have declared war on her, when it has gone into protective mode in response to controversies surrounding other staffers, like [Joy] Reid or Tom Brokaw, the NBC veteran accused of sexual harassment…
“Could NBC News’s fanning of this controversy be the latest attempt to force Kelly out? We’ll have to count down the days and see. Either way, the network and its president are showing no signs of providing the support they’ve shown other embattled hosts, and that certainly feels like an omen.”
The Daily Mail claims that Megyn Kelly is already finished at NBC News, and as such, she won’t return to the network airwaves, although she will pocket her cash:
“Multiple sources have confirmed to DailyMail.com that Megyn Kelly is out at NBC. This move comes just 48 hours after the embattled host made remarks in which she defended blackface on Today. Kelly tried to deal with the scandal by delivering a tearful apology on-air and welcoming two black panelists to discuss the fraught and horrifying history of the practice, but it did no good.
”Megyn Kelly is done. She is not ever coming back,’ said an NBC executive with knowledge of the situation. ‘We are just working out timing of the announcement but mark my word – she is gone and will never be seen on NBC live again.’
“The source then added: ‘Here’s the worst part — her deal is a non-break deal — so she walks away with all that money. It’s disgusting and heads should roll here because of it.'”
“A spokesperson for NBC declined to comment at this time.”
Various media industry observers predicted that Megyn Kelly Today would never work. It appears that they may be correct.
