Megyn Kelly admitted this week that President Donald Trump clarified her decision to leave her post as a primetime host at Fox News earlier this year.
Kelly, whose daytime news show will launch on NBC next Monday, appeared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" Wednesday and explained her reasons for leaving her Fox gig.
"It wasn't until I got my job in primetime that the coverage became all political. I was never a political person. I wasn't raised in a political household. It became clear to me that it wasn't what I wanted to do. That's not who I am," Kelly said.
"Donald Trump has a way of clarifying one's life choices and that was true in my case, too. Just as I was wondering whether this was where I wanted to be and how I wanted to live, the universe came and shown a light and it was clear to me what I wanted to do."
Trump bashed Kelly in the summer of 2015 after he accused her of going too hard on him during a Republican presidential debate. He proceeded to call for a boycott of her show and on multiple occasions called her "overrated" and "crazy."
Kelly said Trump's insulting tweets, which continued into 2016, were not the sole reason why she left Fox to join NBC, where she has hosted a Sunday evening magazine show since June and where she will host "Megyn Kelly Live" weekdays at 9 a.m.
"It wasn't just the tweets. The country's so divided right now and it's so political," Kelly said. "It's like politics has become like race — you can't discuss it at all. That's true on cable news.
"Bill O'Reilly, of all people, told me when I got to cable news primetime, that cable news primetime is a snakepit. That's how it felt. I didn't want to be in the snakepit. I just wanted to cover the news. But it has a way of pulling you in over and over and over and that becomes your life and this wasn't the life I wanted."
Kelly then gestured toward a screen behind her that was showing some of Trump's Twitter attacks directed at her.
"I'm reading that everybody should boycott me, which they did not, by the way," she said. "My ratings only went up during my year of Trump. He was very focused and it was just a clarification and an affirmation that I did not want to live like this."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.