It’s over for Megyn Kelly — at least in the third hour of the Today show.
Three days after defending the use of blackface in Halloween costumes during her morning talk show, NBC announced that she will no longer be a part of the network’s morning lineup.
“Megyn Kelly Today is not returning,” according to the NBC statement. “Next week, the 9 a.m. hour will be hosted by other Today co-anchors.”
What put Kelly in hot water? On Tuesday, she defended Real Housewives of New York star Luann de Lesseps’ Diana Ross Halloween costume, saying, “Who doesn’t love Diana Ross? She wants to look like Diana Ross for one day, and I don’t know how that got racist on Halloween.”
Kelly also stated to a panel of white people, “What is racist? Because truly you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface at Halloween or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid, that was okay as long as you were dressing up as like a character.”
Later that day, she apologized to colleagues via an interoffice note and on Wednesday, shared another mea culpa on her show.
“I was wrong and I am sorry,” she said. “One of the great parts of sitting in this chair each day is getting to discuss different points of view. Sometimes I talk and sometimes I listen and yesterday I learnt. I learned that given the history of blackface being used in awful ways by racists in this country it is not okay for that to be part of any costume, Halloween or otherwise.”
Several outlets have reported that Kelly’s lawyer will meet with NBC as early as today to discuss her next move. It’s unclear whether she will receive a new role within NBC News or leave the network. Kelly was wooed away from Fox News in 2017 by NBC, which is reportedly paying her nearly $20 million a year.
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