Why is anyone still listening to Megyn Kelly?
No matter how many times the former Fox News personality reinvents herself — friendly NBC daytime talk show, serious Sunday night news magazine anchor, desperate-to-cash-in right-wing podcaster — the old Megyn Kelly sabotages the new one.
The veteran media personality has done it again, this time managing to unite the left and right in disgust against her definition of pedophilia following last week’s dump of more documents from the Epstein files.
Last week on her eponymous SiriusXM show, Kelly said that calling the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein a pedophile wasn’t all that accurate because he was “into the barely legal type” of minors, “like 15-year-olds.”
Speaking with NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon, Kelly claimed to know “somebody very, very close to [the Epstein] case who is in a position to know virtually everything,” and “this person has told me from the start, years and years ago, that Jeffrey Epstein, in this person’s view, was not a pedophile.”
Read more: What’s in the explosive Jeffrey Epstein emails accusing Trump? Here is what we know
Epstein was charged in 2019 with the sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. He denied the charges and pleaded not guilty before killing himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial.
“He liked 15-year-old girls,” continued Kelly on her show. “I realize this is disgusting. I’m definitely not trying to make an excuse for this, I’m just giving you facts that he wasn’t into, like, 8-year-olds.”
Then she gunned it off the side of a cliff, Thelma and Louise-style, but without the heroism or the cool, vintage convertible.
“I don’t know what’s true about him, but we have yet to see anybody come forward and say, ‘I was 8, I was under 10, I was under 14, when I first came within his purview,’” Kelly said. “You can say that’s a distinction without a difference.”
Ungar-Sargon pushed back: “No, it’s not.”
Kelly replied, “I think there is a difference. There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know?”
No, we don’t know. Sex with a minor equals pedophilia. Period.
It’s one more instance of Kelly, 55, doing or saying whatever it takes to game the attention economy, no matter how cynical or craven.
Read more: Commentary: The rise and fall of Megyn Kelly and what it says about the state of the media
Her clumsy attempts to make the news rather than report it didn’t particularly stand out during her 12 years at Fox News simply because she was surrounded by peers who are masters at the art of fabricating outrage for ratings, clicks and follows.
“Santa Claus is white!”
“Antifa is watching!”
“Immigrants are in your pantry, snacking on your dog!”
Kelly made it to the top of news feeds when she departed Fox in 2017. She was among a group of women who spoke out against Roger Ailes, head of the conservative cable news station, accusing him of sexual harassment and assault. Ailes resigned in 2016. Kelly became an outspoken proponent of the #MeToo movement and rode that blue-ish wave out of the conservative media ecosystem and into the mainstream with NBC News.
But by 2019, NBC canceled her talk show, “Megyn Kelly Today” after Kelly questioned if wearing blackface was really racist during a segment on Halloween costumes. She was defending Luann de Lesseps, a cast member of the reality show “The Real Housewives of New York,” who had darkened her skin to dress as Diana Ross. Kelly said that when she was a child, it “was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”
Just as the media ecosystem has changed, so has Kelly. She’s now partnered with Mark Halperin, a former NBC News and MSNBC contributor whose contract was canceled in 2017 amid sexual misconduct allegations. Together, they hope to build her MK media empire, jumping off the popularity of “The Megyn Kelly Show.” It’s one of the nation’s most popular right-leaning podcasts. According to data from media tracker The Righting, the program ranked as the third-largest conservative podcast, behind those hosted by Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson.
Defending a pedophile could prove to be her latest act of self-sabotage. If not, there are still plenty of chances for her to fecklessly ride the political tides, aligning with new victors while alienating whoever still believes she stands for something other than her own brand. But she’s running out of new demographics to appeal to. And the public is running out of patience with her.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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