TV anchors are a lot like All-Star baseball players. Their talents usually don’t travel well.
Megyn Kelly, who left the Fox News Channel in January under a hail of bullets shot by her former colleagues, has been all but trashed this week — here and here, to cite just two examples — following the Sept.
25 debut of her new morning talk show, “Megyn Kelly Today,” on Comcast Corp.’s (CMCSA – Get Report) NBC.Interviews with actress Jane Fonda and the cast of NBC’s own “Will & Grace,” featuring Debra Messing, were riddled with moments of cringing and exasperation. Fonda was visibly peeved when asked about her plastic surgery, countering that with Robert Redford alongside her, there were better subjects to discuss.
Messing was equally confused when Kelly brought a so-called “super fan” from the TV audience, and curiously asked him, “Is it true that you became a lawyer, and that you became gay, because of Will?” She later added, “I don’t know about the lawyer thing, but I think the ‘Will & Grace’ thing and the gay thing is going to work out great.”
Twitter (TWTR – Get Report) and other social media platforms lit up, alternating between indignation — you don’t become gay — and scorn.
Kelly, of course, was famously poached from Twenty-First Century Fox Inc.’s (FOXA – Get Report) cash-printing cable network in January after building a large and fawning fan base that appreciated her ability to trash liberals while also fencing with a decidedly sexist president candidate. For…
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