Megyn Kelly Net Worth 2021 | The American Journalist's Career And Earnings

American journalist, presenter, attorney and news anchor Megyn Kelly net worth is $45 million.  

Best known for her primetime shows on the Fox network, Kelly has become one of the most high profile media personalities over the last decade and has gained worldwide attention for her interviews.

Early Life

Megyn Kelly was born on 18th November 1970 in Champaign, Illinois.

Her father was Edward Kelly, a teacher at the State University of New York at Albany.

Her father had Irish heritage and died in his mid-forties of a heart attack. Megyn was just 15 years old at the time and the tragedy occurred ten days before Christmas Day.

Kelly had kept the family tragedy private until she talked about the traumatic experience when she released her autobiography in 2016.

Her father died from a heart attack in the night of December 15th 1985. Earlier on in the evening he and Megyn had a fight about the poor quality of her class ring and how his daughter wanted a more expensive one, which was more than the family could afford.

After the argument, Kelly recalls how she was woke up in the night by her sister to tell her that 'Daddy had a heart attack'.

Megyn’s mother, Linda DeMaio, was a homemaker of German and Italian descent and has been a 'rock' throughout all of Megyn's life.

The family raised Megyn as a Catholic.

Megyn went to Tecumseh Elementary School in Syracuse, New York. The family moved to a suburb of Albany when she was nine years old. She then went to Bethlehem Central High School.

The young schoolgirl was bullied severely growing up by other girls in her class.

Kelly spoke of the time that the 'head bully' called her home and asked her if she knew where all the people were for her birthday party.

When the birthday girl Megyn replied 'No', all the girls she had invited shouted down the telephone, "We're heeerrree".

Education and The Start Of Her Professional Career

After being bullied heavily throughout her school life, Kelly decided to focus on her studies.

She studied political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

After graduating in 1992 she later earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree at Albany Law School three years later.

On both occasions she graduated cum laude (with distinction) which she credits to the high level of effort and work she put into her academic life.

Upon leaving school, Kelly’s first law job was as an associate in Bickel & Brewer LLP in Chicago.

Megyn went on to work at law firm Jones Day. She was there for nine years, and one of her clients was Experian, the credit bureau.

Breaking Into Television

After 9 years working at a law firm, Kelly said that she was tired of the business and that it 'stunk'.

She always had a passion for journalism and decided that it was something that she wanted to pursue for a career.

Megyn moved to Washington, D.C. in 2003 and her television career began. She was hired as a general assignment report by WJLA-TV, an affiliate of ABC.

As a part of her role, Megyn covered local and national events.

She was involved in the live coverage of the Supreme Court, including confirmation hearings of Samuel Alito and John G. Roberts and the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor and William Rehnquist’s death.

Megyn Kelly also presented live coverage of the 2004 presidential election.

Working For Fox News

It has been Kelly's work on Americas most watched news network, Fox News, that has made her a household name today.

The network itself only launched in 1996 and Kelly has been credited with being one of the major anchors that has driven their success in being the number 1 news network in America today.

She applied for a post at Fox News in 2004 and worked on Special Report with Brit Hume and hosted a legal segment named Kelly’s Court during the Weekend Live broadcast. In addition, she was occasionally a weekend anchor substitute.

In 2010, Kelly started hosting America Live, a two-hour afternoon show replacing The Live Desk. The show gained 20% more viewers during 2010 and averaged almost 1.3 million viewers.

The former attorney was hugely popular with the Conservative based audience for her straight talking and ability to create heated debates with her guests.

That same year, Kelly co-hosted a New Year’s Eve special alongside Bill Hemmer.

In 2012, Kelly covered the presidential election results, gaining media attention.

The Kelly File

Kelly took maternity leave in July 2013, leaving America Live.

She began working again in October that year when she started hosting The Kelly File.

A new nightly program, The Kelly File was arguably Megyn's biggest show to date which drew in hundreds of thousands of viewers every night.

Occasionally, this program topped the long running The O’Reilly Factor as the channel’s rating leader which was quite an achievement in itself considering it had been running since the network's launch in 1996.

In 2015, Kelly interviewed Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar (of 19 Kids and Counting) about their son Josh’s 2002 alleged molestation of young girls. Later, she held interviews with two of Josh Duggar’s sisters, Jessa and Jill. Over three million viewers watched the interview.

Controversies

Never one to hold back her opinion on a matter Kelly has been involved in a number of controversies.

Her most famous one probably came in 2015 when she collided with the leading Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

When taking part in the Republican Party presidential debate in 2015, Kelly questioned whether Donald Trump’s temperament was the right fit for a president, particularly referencing his insults to women in the past.

There were many political and media reactions following this, but Megyn refused to apologise for what she called “doing good journalism”.

There was also a rumour that Kelly referred to Trump as “Voldemort”.

The battle between the pair carried on a number of months as Trump called for viewers to boycott her show.

Kelly received a torrent of abuse from Trump's supporters on social media but her ratings for The Kelly File went through the roof.

The Move To NBC News

Kelly began working for NBC in 2017, leaving Fox News after 12 succesful years at the network.

Speaking to Ellen in 2017 she talked about the reasons she left Fox. The news anchor believed that the primetime cable news industry was like a 'snake pit' and that was made abundantly clear to her after her run in with Donald Trump in the 2015 presidential debates.

Kelly wanted to focus on topics that were important to daily lives of the American people rather than making everything political.

NBC gave Kelly this opportunity which she gladly took and believed it would give the public the opportunity to see a different side to her.

At NBC she had a number of roles, including hosting Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly and a daytime talk show called Megyn Kelly Today.

The Megyn Kelly Today Show had a mixed reception with many believing that Kelly's hard-hitting, straight talking was not suited for a daytime audience.

The Megyn Kelly Today Show ran for one season and ended in controversy when, in a discussion about the the use of 'blackface' in Halloween costumes, Kelly stated that she saw no problem with the practice.

Within hours she made a tearful apology and her show was eventually cancelled in 2019 as a result.

Present Day

After this ‘fall from grace’, Kelly took some time away from the spotlight and focused on her family.

Following her departure from NBC, Megyn launched her own media production company, Devil May Care Media.

Her first production was a podcast named The Megyn Kelly Show, which premiered on 28th September 2020.

This podcast has since moved to Sirius XM. It broadcasts at noon ET on weekdays on Triumph, the talk radio channel.

Although it only started in 2020 the show, which is regularly uploaded to her Youtube channel, currently has over 240,000 subscribers.

Megyn Kelly's Notable Achievements

Whilst Kelly has had a tremendously successful career, which is demonstrated by her considerable net worth, there are a number of accolades that she has achieved.

In 2009, the large non-profit organisation Childhelp gave her an award for her work covering the topic of child abuse as a Fox News Anchor.

In 2010, she attended her 15th class reunion at Albany Law School, where she received an Alumni Achievement Award.

In 2014, Time magazine included Megyn Kelly in their list of the one hundred most influential people.

Finally, in 2015, Kelly was inducted into Bethlehem Central High School’s Hall of Fame.

Megyn Kelly’s Other Work

Megyn Kelly wrote an autobiography called Settle for More.

This was published in 2016 by HarperCollins in a deal worth over $10 million.

In 2019, the movie Bombshell was released which portrayed Megyn's Fox News career.

South African actress and Oscar winner Charlize Theron plays Kelly. The movie aims to highlight the sexual misconduct that was alleged to be rife at the news network since its launch in 1996.

The movie was well recieved and has a audience score of 84% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Other notable cast members include Margot Robbie and Nicole Kidman. It is reported that Kelly was not consulted about the film.

Megyn Kelly’s Family life and Personal Life

At the age of 31, Megyn married anaesthesiologist Daniel Kendall in 2001 after dating for four years.

However, the marriage only lasted five years, and there were no children born.

In 2008, Kelly married the CEO and president of Authentium, Douglas Brunt.

He went on to become a novelist and writer full-time. Together, the couple has three children. Their son, Edward Yates (often just referred to as “Yates”), was born in 2009, their daughter, Yardley, in 2011, and their son, Thatcher, in 2013.

Apparently, Megyn’s favourite film is Titanic, and her role model is Oprah Winfrey.

She is said to avoid alcohol and sugar in her diet.

The podcast host is active on social media, which she has a love-hate relationship with.

Kelly has over 2.5million followers on Twitter, 1million followers on Facebook, 150,000 followers on Instagram and over 240,000 subscribers on YouTube.

Megyn Kelly Quotes

“The one talent you’d want to have from somewhere else.” – CNN president Jonathan Klein commenting on his regret of not hiring Kelly at the beginning of her career.

“Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better? Or is this real?” – Megyn Kelly in response to Karl Rove’s opposition to the projection of Obama winning Ohio.

“For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white, but this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa. But Santa is what he is, and just so you know, we’re just debating this because someone wrote about it.” – Megyn Kelly

“If you’re a woman on national television reporting on a political event from hot, humid Cleveland, wearing a weather-appropriate outfit makes you the target of an endless stream of sexist commentary.” The Huffington Post’s Jenavieve Hatch in defence of Megyn Kelly’s attire during the 2016 Republican National Convention coverage.

“I think you can look at a woman’s legs while she delivers the news and still take her seriously.” – Megyn Kelly

“I’m a soulless lawyer. Give me any opinion, and I can argue it.” – Megyn Kelly

“Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change.” – Megyn Kelly

“There are women who literally squeeze a baby out of their bodies or get cut open in major surgery, have a human being, the next generation of the human race pulled from their bodies, and within a couple of weeks have to go back to work because if they don’t, they can’t pay their bills. Something’s wrong with that.” – Megyn Kelly

“Television is a tough business. It’s not that easy to jump shops.” – Megyn Kelly

“Men should have more time with their newborn babies.” – Megyn Kelly

“I feel humbled by the fact that there’s any interest in me at all.” – Megyn Kelly

Summary: Megyn Kelly Net Worth 2021

• Megyn Kelly Net Worth is $45 million.
• She was born in Illinois to a university teacher father, and homemaker mother who raised her in Catholicism.
• Megyn studied law and worked in this field until 2003, when she transitioned to television.
• She worked for Fox News until 2017 and NBC until 2018.
• She has written an autobiography, and her role at Fox News has also been portrayed in a film.
• Currently, Megyn Kelly produces a podcast called The Megyn Kelly Show. She is also active on YouTube and Instagram.
• Megyn is married to Douglas Brunt and has three children. Her first marriage was to an anaesthesiologist that lasted five years.
• Megyn Kelly and her family currently reside in Rye, New York.

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