When long time Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly announced that she was leaving the right-wing soap box, many expressed skepticism regarding what her next move would be. However it wasn't long before rival station NBC announced they would be granting Kelly her own slot titled Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly. As most of us know, that didn't go too well. The show was scrapped two episodes before it was set to end after airing less than compelling interviews with political figureheads, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Certified Lunatic Alex Jones.
After that proved to be an impeccable flop, NBC was forced to take the highest paid female news anchor on television, and plop her into a daytime segment where she pretends she never liked politics anyway. Megyn Kelly Today premiered on Monday (Sept. 25), and let's just say the first week didn't go as smoothly as planned, opening with 2.93 million viewers and dropping to 2.4 million viewers by Thursday, according to Nielsen.
What was interesting about Kelly's move was that when she publicly waved her flag of privilege after rolling out the escapist argument that she was done with politics, she didn't even seem embarrassed. “The truth is I am kinda done with politics for now … it’s everywhere, and it’s gotten so dark and I’m just like: over,” she said. Although Megyn might think politics are a thing of her past, throughout her first week as America's feel-good sweetheart, she showed her viewers the extent to which her Fox News past has influenced her.
On Monday's episode, Kelly brought on the protagonists of the hit series Will & Grace: Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Sean Hayes, and Megan Mullally. When delving into NBC's shameless cross self-promotion, Kelly brought a Will & Grace fan on stage and asked him if watching the show made him gay.
This ignorant comment ultimately led Messing to respond to critics on social media where she expressed regret for appearing on Kelly's daytime debut.
And that was only the first episode.
The rest of the week in Kelly's rebranding attempt didn't go smoothly either. She sat in her distastefully decorated Pier 1 Imports offshoot and asked Jane Fonda about her plastic surgery, to which the 79-year old actress replied, "we really want to talk about that now?" Not to mention one of the cameramen on the show stepped into the frame and then whispered "shit" on live television. See for yourself above.
The most confusing part of Kelly's show was the absence of politics that she so adamantly pushed for. It isn't to say that everyone must be a political enthusiast in order to have any clout, however, when she went up against Donald Trump during his presidential campaign, she wore her opinions on her shoulder. She went head-to-head with a man who publicly criticized her physique on national television.
Kelly may continue to play into the Fox News messaging and general lack of woke-ness, but when she became the spokesperson for conservatives alienated by the president, at the very least she was doing something that mattered.
