Former FOX star Megyn Kelly may be on that inevitable slide to the bottom of the heap. And perhaps not a moment too soon. In the first week of her NBC Morning show, Kelly’s officious and smug personality is making for some uncomfortable moments on the tube. It’s not exactly uplifting day-time TV when the host makes the guest’s skin crawl, and the audience gets that overwhelming feeling that it’s time to hide under the pew.
But that is precisely what’s been happening on NBC. A classic case in point is when she offered Jane Fonda a compliment about growing old gracefully and then slapped her across the face with several questions about plastic surgery.
There are just some things women don’t like to talk about, and a facelift is surely one of them – let alone on nationwide television. It’s uncertain why Ms. Kelly doesn’t know this. Or perhaps she does, and she just wants to endear herself to her female viewers by asking questions that make them want to scratch her eyes out.
Meow.
Here’s how it went with Hanoi Jane:
“You’ve been an example to everyone in how to age beautifully and with strength and unapologetically,” Kelly began.
The crowd broke into applause as Fonda mouthed, “Thank you.”
Then Kelly said, “You admit you’ve had work done, which I think is to your credit. But you look amazing. . . . I read that you said you’re not proud to say you’ve had work done. Why not?”
Fonda’s face tightened, and her lips pursed. It was clear to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of human emotion that she was not happy.
“We really want to talk about that now?” she said.
A chuckling Kelly pressed on, undeterred.
“Well, one of the things people think when they look at you is how amazing you look,” Kelly responded.
“Well, thanks,” Fonda said, her voice filled with barely suppressed animosity. “Good attitude, good posture. I take care of myself. But let me tell you why I love this movie that we did, ‘Our Souls at Night,’ rather than plastic surgery.”
What exactly Kelly is up to is anyone’s guess here. She has a unique deficiency of self-awareness and an inability to see outside of herself as is evident from her new nickname at NBC. Affectionately known as “Me Again,” it seems Megyn’s narcissistic personality has finally eclipsed her self-promotion as just “one of us.”
In his new book, former FOX colleague Bill O’Reilly opened up with a few zingers about “Me Again” by saying, “no one is missing her anymore…it was always about Megyn.” If Bill O’Reilly – of all people – outs you as a narcissist, that’s saying something.
Much has been written about Ms. Kelly as the embodiment of The Peter Principle. For those unfamiliar with the term, I once heard T. Boone Pickens utter a line that sums it up well:
“The Higher the monkey climbs, the more you see his ass.”
Ms. Kelly’s “whatever” in Trumpian terms seems to be showing and it’s not a pretty sight – no matter her well-coiffed looks. As I’ve written about Ms. Kelly before, “when you feed the hungry monster of ego, sometimes you find you can get eaten by the very monster you have created.”
Bottom line folks: it’s hard to come out of an interview looking worse than Hanoi Jane but if Kelly can manage that – my guess is the mirror will be the only audience “Me Again” will have left.
