Megyn Kelly
Megyn Marie Kelly (/ˈmeɪɡən/; born November 18, 1970)[2] is an American journalist and media personality.[3] She currently hosts a talk show and podcast, The Megyn Kelly Show, that airs live daily on the Triumph channel on SiriusXM. She was a talk show host at Fox News from 2004 to 2017 and a host and correspondent with NBC News from 2017 to 2018. She is also active in posting to her Instagram page and YouTube channel.
Megyn Kelly
Megyn Kendall
- Talk show host
- political commentator
2003–present
- Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly
- Megyn Kelly Today
- The Kelly File
- America Live
- The Megyn Kelly Show
-
Daniel Kendall(m. 2001; div. 2006)
3
During her time at Fox News, Kelly hosted America Live and, before that, co-hosted America's Newsroom with Bill Hemmer. From 2007 to 2012, the two reporters hosted Fox News Channel's New Year's Eve specials. Kelly also hosted The Kelly File from October 2013 to January 2017. In 2014, she was included in the TIME list of the 100 most influential people. Kelly left Fox News in January 2017 and joined NBC News. She started hosting the third hour of the morning show Today with her program titled Megyn Kelly Today in September 2017. The show was cancelled in October 2018 after a segment discussing blackface, and she left the network in January 2019.
Early life
Kelly was born in Champaign, Illinois,[4][5] to Edward Francis Kelly, Ed.D.,[6] who taught in the School of Education at the State University of New York at Albany, and Linda (née DeMaio), a homemaker.[7] She is of Italian and German descent on her mother's side and Irish descent on her father's.[7] She was raised Catholic.[8] Her father died of a heart attack in 1985 when she was 15 years old.[9][10]
Kelly attended Tecumseh Elementary School in suburban Syracuse, New York. When she was 9, her family moved to Delmar, New York, a suburb of Albany,[11][5] where she attended Bethlehem Central High School.[12] She obtained an undergraduate degree in political science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 1992[7][13] and earned a J.D. from Albany Law School in 1995.[14]
Kelly was an associate attorney in the Chicago office of law firm Bickel & Brewer LLP. In fall 1996, she co-wrote an article, "The Conflicting Roles of Lawyer as Director", for the American Bar Association's journal, Litigation.[15] She later worked at Jones Day for nine years, where one of her clients was the credit bureau Experian.[16]
Television career
Early career
In 2003, Kelly moved to Washington, D.C., where she was hired by the ABC affiliate WJLA-TV as a general assignment reporter.[10] She covered national and local events, including live coverage of the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John G. Roberts, the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and the 2004 presidential election.[17] CNN president Jonathan Klein later said he regretted not hiring Kelly as a reporter at the beginning of her career, because she was "the one talent you'd want to have from somewhere else".[18]
2004–2017: Fox News
In 2004, Kelly applied for a job at Fox News.[17] She contributed legal segments for Special Report with Brit Hume and hosted her own legal segment, Kelly's Court, during Weekend Live. She appeared in a weekly segment on The O'Reilly Factor and occasionally filled in for Greta Van Susteren on On the Record, where most of her reporting focused on legal and political matters. She occasionally contributed as an anchor, but more often as a substitute anchor on weekends.[19] On February 1, 2010, Kelly began hosting her own two-hour afternoon show, America Live, which replaced The Live Desk.[20][21] She was a guest panelist on Fox News' late-night satire program Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld. In 2010, viewership for America Live increased by 20%, averaging 1,293,000 viewers, and increased by 4% in the 25–54 age demographic, averaging 268,000 viewers.[22] In December 2010, Kelly hosted a New Year's Eve special with Bill Hemmer.[23]
Writing
In February 2016, Kelly signed an agreement with HarperCollins to write an autobiography scheduled for release later that year, in a deal worth more than $10 million.[107][108][109] The book, titled Settle for More, was released on November 15, 2016.[110][111]
In popular culture
Bombshell, a 2019 film depicting Roger Ailes' sexual abuses and his subsequent resignation from Fox News, was released on December 13, 2019. Kelly is portrayed in the film by Charlize Theron, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.[116]
Kelly said she was not consulted for the film's content.[117] However, after viewing a screening of the film, Kelly held a roundtable discussion with other involved parties such as Juliet Huddy, Rudi Bakhtiar, Douglas Brunt, and former Fox News producer Julie Zann. Kelly confirmed and denied several moments in the film, while describing the film overall as an emotional experience for her.[118][119]