Megyn Kelly’s mother was rather excited when she learned that a movie (“Bombshell”) was being made that revolved around her famous daughter’s time at Fox News. So excited, in fact, that Mom had a recommendation about who could play her in the film.
“There was an incident early on where my mom, who lives in upstate New York where I’m from, called me up and she said, ‘Why don’t you tell me they were making a movie about you?’” Kelly recalled on Friday’s “Real Time With Bill Maher.”
“I’m like, ‘Ma I don’t know anything about it.’ She goes, ‘I want Stormy Daniels to play me,’” Kelly said laughing. “So I have no clout. She didn’t get a role. She was disappointed.”
Later on, Mom went to the theater to see “Bombshell,” in which Charlize Theron earned an Oscar nomination in her role as, yes, Megyn Kelly.
“And then she tells me, she goes, ‘When I stood up in the theater and told everyone I was your mother, they said very nice things about you,’” Kelly said, grinning. “I’m like, ‘Oh for the love of God.’”
Kelly opened up to Maher about her exit from Fox News and how the state of the media weighed heavy on her.
“I miss sort of being a voice of reason in the storm because there’s so much hysteria in the media for and against,” she said. “And when I left “The Kelly File,” I remember feeling like I might have a societal obligation to stay because I did owe it to my audience to separate the wheat from the chaff and I thought I did a good job of it. But I have three little people who I owe more to,” she added, referring to her kids Yates, Yardley and Thatcher.
Kelly said she found the “messed up” and “biased” media “disheartening,” saying she felt that way “for a long time, not just since Trump.”
Maher noted her very public ouster from NBC after her on-air comment about the appropriateness of blackface as part of Halloween costumes. He defended her, saying he didn’t think what she said was “that awful.”
“I mean, you even apologized for something that I didn’t think was that awful,” he said. It’s like, why can’t you just say, ‘OK, I was a little inartful about how I expressed that. My bad. I’m sorry move on with our lives.’ Instead of, ‘No, you have to go away for all time.’ Wow well who are these perfect people who have never made any mistake?”
Watch Kelly’s entire interview with Maher in the video at the top.