by Mary Margaret Olohan
Journalist Megyn Kelly advocated for “proportionality in the #MeToo movement,” saying she does not believe in the statement “believe all women.”
Kelly reacted to the movie “Bombshell” with former Fox employees Juliet Huddy, Rudi Bakhtiar, and Julie Zaan, as well as Kelly’s husband Doug Brunt, in a YouTube video posted Thursday.
The group discussed how “Bombshell” portrayed their experiences and sexual misconduct allegations against former Fox CEO Roger Ailes and former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.
The former Fox News host describes how Ailes asked her to “twirl” for him before she started at Fox News, a request that allowed Ailes to examine Kelly’s body. “God help me,” she says. “I did it.”
Kelly, who was already established as a lawyer, explained that she still finds this incident demeaning.
“I know people think it’s like, ‘Oh, you had to spin around,’ but I remember feeling like, ‘I put myself through school. I was offered a partnership at Jones Day, one of the best law firms in the world. I argued before federal courts of appeal all over the nations. I came here. I’m covering the United States Supreme Court. I graduated with honors from all of my programs and now he wants me to twirl?’ And I did it.”
Ailes also tried to kiss her three times in 2006, Kelly said, reading entries from her journal that describe the incidents.
Kelly supported her fellow Fox News co-workers in their attempts to make their sexual assault allegations heard, but she does not support the quote “believe all women.” The phrase became popular during the September 2018 trial of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her.
Video obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation in September shows Ford’s lawyer saying that the accuser was partially motivated by a desire to put “an asterisk next to” Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s name before “he takes a scalpel” to Roe v. Wade.
Kelly says in a voice over that “bitterness can go both ways,” adding that some people believe the #METOO movement prioritizes “firings over fairness” as the video pans over headlines such as “When the #METOO Movement Goes To Far,” “The Erosion Of Due Process For Public Figures In The #METOO Era,” and “Exclusive: METOO Pushes CEO Firings To An All-Time High.”
“I think there’s room for proportionality in the #MeToo movement,” Kelly tells her panel, towards the end of the video. “I actually don’t happen to be one of those people who believes in the quote ‘believe all women.’”
“Some women lie,” the former Fox News host adds. “Trust me, I practiced law for 10 years, some people make it up. Most don’t, but some do. And guys deserve due process and deserve skeptical assessment, respectful but skeptical, that’s how we do it in the law, and then truth tends to win out.”
Kelly notes as the video begins to conclude that “truth has since won out” at NBC, CBS, NPR, and in Hollywood.
“And while progress is never easy,” she says, “it’s worth it.”
Kelly did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
– – –
Mary Margaret Olohan is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Megyn Kelly” by Megyn Kelly.
