Megyn Kelly

Background

Megyn Marie Kelly, born on November 18, 1970, with Scorpio as her zodiac sign, hails from Champaign, Illinois. She is the third and youngest child in her family. Her father, Edward Kelly, was a professor at the State University of New York at Albany, while her mother, Linda Kelly, was a stay-at-home mom. She is of Irish descent on her father’s side and Italian and German descent on her mother’s side. Kelly was raised Catholic, growing up in the suburbs of Albany in Delmar, New York, and attending Bethlehem Central High School. After getting turned down by Syracuse University’s school of public communications, she enrolled at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, earning an undergraduate degree in political science in 1992.

In 1995, Kelly graduated with a law degree from Albany Law School. She worked as an associate at Bickel & Brewer L.L.P. in Chicago before moving to Jones Day, where she worked for nine years. Kelly is one of the most popular television personalities of her generation. Since she got into broadcast journalism in the early 2000s, Kelly has been at the forefront of political discussions across different administrations. In 2003, she moved to Washington D.C. to pursue her career in broadcast journalism. She used her legal background to cover confirmation hearings for Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. while working for WJLA-TV. Kelly also covered the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She covered the elections in 2004, 2008, and 2016 with her trademark brand of uncompromising journalism, asking tough questions and often ruffling feathers even in her camp.

Her work caught the attention of “Fox News,” which hired her after she covered the elections in 2004. Kelly’s career at “Fox News” spanned over 12 years. She became renowned for her hard-hitting interviews, confronting guests on controversial issues even if they were Republicans who received preferential treatment from the conservative-leaning news network. In 2015, Kelly famously challenged Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, refusing to apologize for what she called “good journalism” after the two clashed during a party primary debate moderated by Kelly. Trump and Kelly made amends in April 2016. Still, by June, she was back to criticizing him, this time for attacking a federal judge’s credibility and his loaded remarks in a leaked audio recording.

Following backlash from “Fox News’s” predominantly conservative audience, Kelly moved to N.B.C. in 2017, hosting “N.B.C.’s Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly” and later, “Megyn Kelly Today.” But the career change didn’t pan out, and she left N.B.C. in 2019. Kelly announced the launch of her media production company ‘Devil May Care Media,’ and in 2020, started her podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show.”