Megyn Kelly

Journalist

Birthday November 18, 1970

Birth Sign Scorpio

Birthplace Champaign, Illinois, U.S.

Age 53 years old

Nationality United States

Height 5′ 6″

#1873 Most Popular

1970

Megyn Marie Kelly (born November 18, 1970) is an American journalist and media personality.

She currently hosts a talk show and podcast, The Megyn Kelly Show, that airs live daily on the Triumph channel on SiriusXM.

1985

Her father died of a heart attack in 1985 when she was 15 years old.

Kelly attended Tecumseh Elementary School in suburban Syracuse, New York.

When she was 9, her family moved to Delmar, New York, a suburb of Albany, where she attended Bethlehem Central High School.

1992

She obtained an undergraduate degree in political science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 1992 and earned a J.D. from Albany Law School in 1995.

Kelly was an associate attorney in the Chicago office of law firm Bickel & Brewer LLP.

1996

In fall 1996, she co-wrote an article, "The Conflicting Roles of Lawyer as Director", for the American Bar Association's journal, Litigation.

She later worked at Jones Day for nine years, where one of her clients was the credit bureau Experian.

2003

In 2003, Kelly moved to Washington, D.C., where she was hired by the ABC affiliate WJLA-TV as a general assignment reporter.

2004

She was a talk show host at Fox News from 2004 to 2017 and a host and correspondent with NBC News from 2017 to 2018.

She is also active in posting to her Instagram page and YouTube channel.

During her time at Fox News, Kelly hosted America Live and, before that, co-hosted America's Newsroom with Bill Hemmer.

She covered national and local events, including live coverage of the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John G. Roberts, the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and the 2004 presidential election.

CNN president Jonathan Klein later said he regretted not hiring Kelly as a reporter at the beginning of her career, because she was "the one talent you'd want to have from somewhere else".

In 2004, Kelly applied for a job at Fox News.

She contributed legal segments for Special Report with Brit Hume and hosted her own legal segment, Kelly's Court, during Weekend Live.

She appeared in a weekly segment on The O'Reilly Factor and occasionally filled in for Greta Van Susteren on On the Record, where most of her reporting focused on legal and political matters.

She occasionally contributed as an anchor, but more often as a substitute anchor on weekends.

2007

From 2007 to 2012, the two reporters hosted Fox News Channel's New Year's Eve specials.

2010

On February 1, 2010, Kelly began hosting her own two-hour afternoon show, America Live, which replaced The Live Desk.

She was a guest panelist on Fox News' late-night satire program Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld.

In 2010, viewership for America Live increased by 20%, averaging 1,293,000 viewers, and increased by 4% in the 25–54 age demographic, averaging 268,000 viewers.

In December 2010, Kelly hosted a New Year's Eve special with Bill Hemmer.

2012

Kelly received media attention for her coverage of the results of the 2012 United States presidential election.

On election night, Fox News' decision desk projected that Obama would win the state of Ohio along with a second term after part of the results had been released.

In response to Karl Rove's opposition to this projection, Kelly walked backstage to the decision desk on camera and spoke with them; she also asked Rove, "Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better? Or is this real?"

2013

Kelly also hosted The Kelly File from October 2013 to January 2017.

Kelly left America Live in July 2013 and took maternity leave.

That October she began hosting a new nightly program, The Kelly File.

The Kelly File was occasionally the channel's ratings leader, topping The O'Reilly Factor.

In December 2013, Kelly commented on a Slate article on The Kelly File: "For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white, but this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa," adding, "But Santa is what he is, and just so you know, we're just debating this because someone wrote about it."

Kelly also said that Jesus was a white man later in the segment.

Soon after, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Rachel Maddow, Josh Barro, and others satirized her remarks.

2014

In 2014, she was included in the TIME list of the 100 most influential people.

2017

Kelly left Fox News in January 2017 and joined NBC News.

She started hosting the third hour of the morning show Today with her program titled Megyn Kelly Today in September 2017.

2018

The show was cancelled in October 2018 after a segment discussing blackface, and she left the network in January 2019.

Kelly was born in Champaign, Illinois, to Edward Francis Kelly, Ed.D., who taught in the School of Education at the State University of New York at Albany, and Linda (née DeMaio), a homemaker.

She is of Italian and German descent on her mother's side and Irish descent on her father's. She was raised Catholic.