‘It’s not going to be the Trump channel’
Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly talks about her new show on NBC
NEW YORK — “Megyn Kelly Today,” the 9 a.m. hour of NBC’s highly profitable “Today” show, marks the rebranding of the former Fox News host.
The show, a typical blend of news, lifestyle segments and celebrities in front of a live studio audience — it was to debut Monday — “will be topical, but it’s not going to be all news of the day,” she said last week.
“We’ll definitely be talking about major developments out of Washington, but it’s not going to be the Trump channel. I just don’t think that’s what people are looking for.” And besides, despite her 13 years at “The Kelly File,” “politics has never been something that’s important to me.”
So what will viewers like “Madge from Middle America,” Kelly’s longtime imaginary target, glean if they start watching?
“They’ll understand what’s happening in their world, cultural issues, legal issues and a lot of times, personal issues, whether it’s something focused on a person’s marriage, or child-rearing, or quest for happiness or health or finances.”
In other words, not much different from previous versions of Today’s later hours, also filled with celebrities.
The première week’s turnout will range from NBC talent — the women of “Saturday Night Live” and the casts of “Will & Grace” and “This is Us” — to Morgan Freeman, Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.
The difference, says NBC News president Noah Oppenheim, is Kelly.
Although she’s known for her pointed, sometimes combative questioning of politicians, “she’s really warm, she’s really funny, she’s incredibly quick on her feet, she’s devoted to her family and husband (and) she’s open about things that are going on in her personal life,” he says.
“This isn’t about trying to shoehorn her into a format where she doesn’t belong. This show is a natural expression of what she wanted to do from Day 1. I think the audience will sense that authenticity, even if it’s a side of her they haven’t seen before.”
Kelly left Fox News in January, after the drama of sexual harassment charges against ousted chief Roger Ailes, lawsuits, settlements and Donald Trump’s mockery and attempts to intimidate her during the presidential campaign.
Has she spoken to the president? “The week of his inauguration, we had a phone call. I congratulated him; he congratulated me on taking this job at his former shop. He had all sorts of advice to me on the show, and it was very cordial, and we’re fine,” she says.
Why is she rolling her eyes as she says this? “It was such a year of nonsense, and in some ways even a year of torment.”
But she bristles at suggestions that Trump deserves credit for raising her public profile.
“I was in danger for much of the year, my family was in danger” as Trump supporters threatened her.
“I was doing just fine, so I don’t appreciate when people suggest I was some college coed prior to Donald Trump finding me in obscurity and plucking me out,” she says.
“Donald Trump did not make me; I made me. And for the record, unlike President Trump, I did not have a rich father who gave me a $1-million loan when I was a kid.
“My dad died when I was in high school, I paid my own way and lifted myself up.”
What she describes as her “non-partisan” approach to political talk “made me better as an anchor in cable news,” but while “The Kelly File” suited her skills, “it didn’t make me happy.”
She turned down a larger offer to stay at Fox and moved to NBC, where she anchored a low-rated summer prime-time newsmagazine, but is now prepped for her main role as morning host.
Does she worry about disappointment in the treacherous world of daytime TV?
“People say, ‘Oh, it’s a new place; Oh you can fail; Oh, you haven’t done a morning network TV show,’” Kelly says.
But “you don’t make decisions out of fear. I could have made more money, I could have had more job security … that wasn’t what I wanted to do.”