NBC Finally Splits With Megyn Kelly
After months of intense negotiations over her departure, centering around her reported $69-million contract.
NBC
Megyn Kelly is finally out at NBC.
After months of intense negotiations, the former host of Megyn Kelly Today and NBC finalized an exit deal resolving the remainder of her three-year contract, which was reportedly worth $69 million.
“The parties have resolved their differences, and Megyn Kelly is no longer an employee of NBC,” the network said in a statement Friday evening.
Kelly will be paid the full $25-30 million remaining on her contract, a source with knowledge of the negotiation told the Daily Beast.
Kelly has not appeared on NBC since late October after intense backlash to her comments questioning why blackface costumes are considered offensive.
Though she offered an on-air apology just hours after making the comments on her NBC morning show, many of her own colleagues—especially those at the Today show—expressed public and private outrage over her remarks.
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Negotiations over Kelly’s exit have been ugly, at points spilling out into public view.
In October, Kelly’s lawyer accused NBC higher-ups of leaking damaging information on the negotiations to various tabloids. Sources told The Daily Beast last fall that talks had stalled over Kelly’s reluctance to sign a non-disparagement agreement.
Asked if Kelly was happy with the deal, a source close to her told The Daily Beast “there’s nothing about this experience that has been happy for Megyn.”
It is unclear if the agreement prevents Kelly from speaking openly about her experience at NBC.
Kelly has reportedly been interested in returning to television news at some point to cover the 2020 presidential campaign. But many network executives have expressed skepticism that she will end up at a major network, citing her NBC show’s middling ratings and the intense backlash to her blackface comments and other controversies from her career at Fox News and NBC.
But that hasn’t seemed to faze Kelly.
In a brief ambush interview this week, the former NBC anchor said that she would “definitely” be back on TV this year.
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