Megyn Kelly Exits NBC With $30 Million Settlement
Written by SOURCE on January 13, 2019
Megyn Kelly is officially out of a job—but don’t expect her to hit the unemployment line anytime soon.
On Friday, NBC announced they had finalized the terms of Kelly’s exit, just two years after she inked a $69 million deal with the network: “The parties have resolved their differences, and Megyn Kelly is no longer an employee,” NBC said in a statement to the New York Times.
The publication reports that Kelly will walk away with a $30 million payout, which is the remainder of her original $69 million contract. In January 2017, the former Fox News anchor signed on to host the Megyn Kelly Today show, which was canceled back in October following her controversial blackface comments.
“But what is racist? You truly 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,” Kelly told an all-white panel on the morning talk show. “Back when I was a kid, that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as like a character.”
Kelly’s defense of blackface immediately sparked outrage, prompting her to issue an apology in which she used her ignorance as an excuse.
“I realize now that such behavior is indeed wrong, and I am sorry,” she wrote in an email to her NBC colleagues. “The history of blackface in our culture is abhorrent; the wounds too deep. I’ve never been a “pc” kind of person — but I understand that we do need to be more sensitive in this day and age. Particularly on race and ethnicity issues which, far from being healed, have been exacerbated in our politics over the past year.”
It’s unclear where Kelly will head next. Though there were reports that her NBC contract included a “non-compete” clause, she recently told TMZ she would “definitely” be back on TV.
