With her sea green eyes and golden tresses, Megyn Kelley rules the Fox News Channel with her commanding personality. Also known as Megan Kendall, Kelley has acquired many feathers in her cap through her various achievements. She is a journalist by profession, a political commentator, former attorney and a news journalist, known for her well-acclaimed news show on Fox TV, ‘The Kelly File’. She was one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in the Time list for 2014.
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Early life
Megyn Kelly was born in the year 1970, in the city of Syracuse, New York. Megyn Kelly is the daughter of Edward Kelly and Linda Kelly. Her mother is a home maker, while her father taught education in the State University in Albany, New York. In her childhood, Kelley attended Tecumseh Elementary School, and later, when she was nine years old, the family moved to Albany, New York, where she attended Bethlehem Central High School. Her father expired when she was fifteen years old. After high school, she persuaded an undergraduate course in political science in Syracuse University. In 1995, she earned a JD from Albany law School.
Career Rise
Her TV program “Kelly File” was ranked in the second position in the cable news. This was one of her most popular shows where she covered in-depth analyses along with breaking news and interviews. She has also anchored two other TV programs “America Live” and “America’s News room’ along with Bill Hemmer. Kelly also served as the co anchor in the year 2012 and 2014’s election season, where she campaigned for FNC’s American elections HQ, with Bret Baier. During the midterm Election Night in 2014, FNC was the most viewed TV channel, with an approximate count of 6.6 million viewers. Later she hosted a number of other popular TV shows like Special Report with Brit Hume, Weekend live, The O’Reily factor, The live Desk; to mention a few. In 2012, during the United States Presidential Elections, Kelley was under the spotlight for her coverage and broadcast regarding the event.
Megyn Kelly – Husband and children
On September 29, 2001, Megyn Kelley married Daniel Kendall, an anesthesiologist by profession. Unfortunately the marriage ended in the year 2006 with a divorce. Two years later in 2008, on March 1, she tied the knot for the second time with the President and CEO of Authentium, Douglas Brunt. Later, Brunt chose the profession as an author and became a full time novelist and a writer. The couple is happily married now and is blessed with three children, sons Edward Yates, Thatcher Bray and daughter Yardley Evans.
Public Image
Undoubtedly with her experience in various fields in her carrier, Megyn Kelley has emerged as a very successful and confident person, both in her personal and professional life. Her confidence and her self-worth reflect in her personality, in whatever she does. She stands tall and gracious at a height of 5 feet and 6 inches, wearing her sun shine smile, where ever she goes.
Her Book – Settle for More
Megyn Kelly has poured in some of her life’s experiences in the motivational autobiography called ‘ Settle for More‘. The book released on November 15, 2016. She takes a leaf from Dr. Phil’s message which influenced her, ‘ The difference between you and someone you envy, is that you settled for less’. In the book, she has revealed a lot about her time working for Fox, including launching an expose on Roger Ailes and talking about her experiences meeting Donald Trump. You can order the book on Amazon.
Megyn Kelly – Net Worth and Salary
Her net worth is $ 15 million; she draws a reportedly impressive base salary of $270,000, taking her annual package to $9 million. Her great looks along with her tongue–in-cheek sharp takes on any social issue has made her the star in her profession. It has been reported that Megyn Kelly may leave Fox News if she is not given a higher salary which compares to the likes of Bill O’ Reilly who earns a salary of $18 million per year.
Sources stated that Megyn Kelly was looking for a salary that is somewhere between $15 – $17 million. She has quoted as saying ‘Never say Never’ when questions were posed to her about leaving Fox. The popular news anchor says that she loves working for her boss Roger Miles but understands his stand for not taking a reprimanding stand against Donald Trump and his disparaging statements against her. The woman who had given high TRPs for Fox due to her skirmishes with Donald Trump, said Roger Ailes was helpless because Fox News had to give the platform to the Republican candidate who is in the run for US Presidential Elections 2016.
Megyn Kelly decided to leave Fox News for NBC on January 3, 2016. It was announced that Rupert Murdoch even agreed to pay her a salary of $20 million, making her the highest paid news anchor ever. But after Roger Ailes controversy, she was done with the channel.
The celebrated news anchor put up a Facebook post announcing her departure from Fox and said that she would be launching her daytime news show Monday through Friday for NBC, along with Sunday evening news based program. She stated that she will also cover political and special events and participate in the breaking news coverage for NBC. On June 1, 2017, she started her episode of ‘Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly’ where she interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Megyn Kelly – Salary at NBC
Megyn Kelly’s salary per year with NBC starting 2017 was $23 million, which in other words, means that she was put in a 3-year contract for $69 million. Her main show for the channel is ‘Megyn Kelly Today’.
However, six months into the show; the show didn’t fare exactly as it should have. The average viewer reach was 2.4 million viewers, lesser than ‘Live with Kelly and Ryan’ which reached 3 million on the same time slot on ABC.
In her defence, Kelly stated that her show was just barely less than six months old. She stated that it was important to give the show at least a year, before deciding. One of the reasons Kelly had left Fox News was because she wanted to do a morning news show, as she wanted to be with her three kids, post evening and night. Megyn Kelly had received a salary offer of $25 million per year by Fox (or $100 million for 4 years) but she tossed it for NBC.
Megyn Kelly out of NBC with $69 million salary contract
As ‘Megyn Kelly’ today was grappling with low ratings, Kelly dug a cave for herself and jumped into it, so to say, by making a remark on ‘blackface’ as a part of Halloween celebrations. Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used mostly by non-black actors to represent a caricature of a black person. The practice of black stereotypes increased in the 19th century and then on, due to the ‘blackface’.
Kelly was criticized on her show, because she had commented on the appropriateness of blackface as a part of Halloween costumes. She supported Luann des Lesseps’s stance of blackface to appear as Diana Ross. Later, that day, Kelly issued an internal official email statement stating that she was sorry for her remarks. She wrote, “I realize now that such behavior is indeed wrong, and I am sorry”, and that “I’ve never been a ‘pc’ kind of person — but I understand that we do need to be more sensitive in this day and age, particularly on race and ethnicity issues which, far from being healed, have been exacerbated in our politics over the past year. This is a time for more understanding, love, sensitivity and honor, and I want to be part of that. I look forward to continuing that discussion.”
NBC announced on October 26, 2018 that the show would be canceled, and she would be paid $69 million as her exit amount.