PANIC OVER MEGYN’S TODAY SHOW START
Execs are scrambling after critics and viewers lash out at Megyn Kelly
The reviews started appearing online just hours after Megyn Kelly made her Sept. 25 debut as host of Today’s third hour — and they were brutal. “[It] was like watching a network try to assemble its own Bride of Frankenstein, using parts of Ellen Degeneres, Kelly Ripa and whatever else it can find,” said The Washington Post. CNN said NBC had hired Megyn away from Fox News “without having fully thought through how best to deploy her.” Critics almost universally labeled the show “awkward,” and Time called her “more chilly than chill.”
Then things got even worse. Megyn’s stumbles in her first few days, including cringeworthy interviews with the Will & Grace cast and Hollywood legend Jane Fonda, drew the ire of social media users who found some of her comments offensive. “Sorry, but Megyn Kelly sucks. She’s just not likeable,” tweeted one typically blunt viewer. The ratings for her first day were good, as viewers sampled the new show, but harsh reviews and viewer backlash threw Today execs into a panic and while Megyn, 46, stayed positive publicly, in private she was “absolutely mortified,” says a network insider. “Leaving Fox was a huge gamble for her and she doesn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her fail.” (A net-
work source denies that Megyn is mortified.)
FALLING FLAT
In that case, she’ll have to do a lot better. On her first day, Megyn, who awkwardly talked about herself and stiffly told jokes, asked a Will & Grace superfan if he “became gay” because of the show. Viewers were horrified, and star Debra Messing said she was “dismayed” by the interview and regretted appearing. On Sept. 27, after Megyn asked Jane, 79, about her plastic surgery — in the middle of a joint interview with Robert Redford to promote their Netflix film Our Souls at Night — the actress snapped at the host and was so furious, a source says, she later called a top NBC exec to complain. “With Bob there,” Jane told Life & Style at the Sept. 27 Our Souls premiere, “it was just a strange question.”
Megyn has insisted she’s not worried, but she seems
desperate to escape her past, where she was a star at Fox News but also polarized people with comments most deemed racist. One infamous statement that continues to haunt her is “Jesus was a white man, too. He’s a historical figure, that’s a verifiable fact, as is Santa — I just want kids to know that.” The National Association of Black Journalists released a statement saying, “Kelly has a well-documented history of offensive remarks regarding people of color.”
Now, however, Megyn says she wants her new show to be “fun and uplifting and ideally empowering and enlightening.” But if things don’t change after her disastrous debut, the insider adds, this “could be a sinking ship that goes down quickly.”