‘Screw You’: Megyn Explains Why She Does Not Forgive NBC

Megyn Kelly

Before Megyn Kelly's faced a contentious exit from NBC News in 2018, Billy Bush was unceremoniously forced out at the network in 2016 after a 10-year-old tape of him and Donald Trump was leaked.

The so-called ‘Access Hollywood tape’ was from a 2005 interview Bush did with Trump on the set of Days of Our Lives in which The Apprentice host bragged about “grabbing women by the pussy” in a hot mic moment. The footage, in which Bush could be heard laughing, was leaked to The Washington Post just weeks before the 2016 election. And Bush lost his job at the Today show soon after.

In many ways, Megyn’s rocky tenure at NBC mirrored what Bush experienced. On last Tuesday’s show, the Hot Mics with Billy Bush host joined her to discuss parting ways with the network and who they have yet to make amends with.

Kelly's podcast blog provides behind-the-scene insights:

➤Bush’s Experience

While Bush admitted that he struggled in the aftermath of losing his job at a network he had worked at for so many years on both Access Hollywood and Today, he said he has come to forgive all but one person for what happened.

The lone holdout is Andy Lack, the former chairman of NBC News and MSNBC, who Bush called a “lethal little snake” for his behavior. “He never apologized to me. I called him once, and… [he] was so dismissive. He talked to me for like seven seconds on the phone and was like, ‘I can’t help you. I don’t care,'” Bush recalled. “We’re imperfect people. Good people are capable of doing bad things… But if you own up and you apologize, you’re good by me because I’m the most imperfect.”

➤Megyn’s Experience

Bush may have been willing to bury the hatchet, but Megyn said her experience with certain talent at the Peacock network has made it hard to do so. “I can definitely get past negative encounters with somebody and get past adversarial experiences with somebody,” she explained. “But I just felt like what they did at NBC was so disgusting and so ruthless that I don’t forgive them.”

Longtime Today host Al Roker and soon-to-be co-anchor Craig Melvin are among those Megyn does not forgive. “Eff Craig Melvin and eff Al Roker,” she said. “Craig Melvin is not a good guy. Screw him. I can’t stand that guy.”

Megyn referred to Roker as a “slithering snake of a man” and said, generally speaking, the sunny disposition of morning show hosts that the public sees rarely matches what goes on when the cameras turn off. “[They] are out there so cheery and so sweet to start your day with,” she said. “Behind the scenes, what they care about is their money and their fame.”