Megyn Kelly visited the Ellen show on Wednesday, where she opened up about her decision to leave Fox News following a tumultuous year when she was subject to regular attacks from the then-Republican candidate, now President Donald Trump. Kelly said that she never got into journalism for the political aspect, and that — as a former attorney — she started out her career on cable news doing daytime legal commentary. It wasn’t until she started in prime time that things became difficult.
“Bill O’Reilly of all people told me when I came to cable news prime time, that cable news prime time is a snake pit, and that’s how it felt, and I didn’t want to be in the snake pit, I just wanted to cover the news,” she said. “But it has a way of pulling you in over and over and over and that becomes your life and then this wasn’t the life I wanted, and then the boycott … which they did not, by the way, my ratings only went up during the year of Trump.”
On how Trump factored into her decision, she explained: “Donald Trump has a way of clarifying one’s life choices, and, uh, that was true in my case too. And really, just as I was starting to wonder if this is where I wanted to be and how I wanted to live, you know the universe came to me and shone a light, and it was clear to me what I wanted to do.”
Kelly also took some time to clarify her remarks on giving Trump a chance to be a good president. “My reaction was, when he started tweeting and people were sort of horrified and shocked, weren’t you paying attention?” she said. “We knew he was going to behave this way, however at the beginning of his presidency, I said lets keep an open mind at least. Let’s root for him to listen to his better angels.”