The Megyn Kelly act got old very fast for her Fox colleagues and producers, a Fox News insider said Tuesday. And when Kelly made up a story about Donald Trump threatening her, she sealed her walking papers with the network.
“Everyone we work with hated this woman,” the Fox insider said. “She changed so much and made it impossible to like her.”
The situation at Fox, the network insider said, simply came down to this: If Kelly stayed, then Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reily were free to leave and possibly work for ousted Fox News legend Roger Ailes, whom Kelly accused of allegedly sexually harassing her.
Hannity and O’Reilly had grown tired of defending Kelly’s partisan “journalism” both on screen and off screen and her on-air feud with Donald Trump, the Fox insider said. After Kelly alleged that Trump threatened her before the presidential debates — a bogus claim believed to try to jump start Kelly’s lackluster book sales — the Fox insider said that proved the proverbial last straw for the top talent at the network. Both Hannity and O’Reilly have clauses in their contracts allowing them to walk away from Fox absent Ailes’ employment with the network. They could walk out the door at any moment and freely join another network or as many feared, a news startup launched by Ailes to compete with Fox.
Newly promoted Fox co-president Bill Shine cut a deal with O’Reilly and Hannity. By agreeing to stay on at Fox uninterrupted, Shine guaranteed to allow Kelly’s contract to expire absent negotiating an extension, the Fox insider said.
While Hannity openly called Kelly a Hillary Clinton supporter on air, O’Reilly instead used back channels to quietly express his dismay with her to Fox News brass. The insider said O’Reilly had “major issues” with Kelly, especially because she would do anything and say anything for ratings in a quest to top his show’s numbers.
But beyond Hannity and O’Reilly, Kelly was simply despised by several dozens at Fox. The insider said Kelly’s star inside the network tumbled in 2016 after she alleged Ailes sexually harassed her in 2006 after giving her a hug she didn’t like. Ailes resigned this summer from Fox.