Conservative pundit and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly received a swift reminder of her own TV history after celebrating CBS' cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, calling the show's host "a failure."
Colbert has consistently been at the top of the ratings so it shocked people when CBS, citing economic concerns, announced that his program will go off the air next May—news that comes as its parent company, Paramount, seeks government approval for a merger with Skydance.
Three top Paramount and CBS executives called Colbert’s show “a staple of the nation’s zeitgeist,” emphasizing in a statement that the cancellation “is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” They insisted the move bears no relation "to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Kelly said on her program that she believes Colbert's liberal political fuels ultimately contribute to the show's cancellation:
“He took that show, which was a great platform in nighttime television at the Ed Sullivan Theater, and completely drove it into the ground. He had originally been at Comedy Central where he was more comedy. And when he moved over to CBS, he decided to be more pundit."
"He desperately wanted to be Keith Olbermann. And guess what? Keith Olbermann is a failure, and now so are you, Stephen Colbert.”
But Kelly overlooked some key facts about her own media career.
Kelly clashed with then-candidate Donald Trump during a 2015 Republican debate before leaving the network for NBC. There, she signed a three-year, $69 million deal that included a Sunday night news magazine and a third hour of the Today show titled Megyn Kelly Today.
Despite the high-profile move, Kelly struggled to gain traction in the ratings. Her show was pulled after she defended the use of blackface in Halloween costumes—a comment that sparked swift backlash. Though she later apologized, NBC canceled the program just days later. The network reportedly paid out her full contract.
It sure sounded like projection on Kelly's part—and she was quickly called out.
Trump had sued Paramount over a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which aired just before the 2024 election. Trump claims the segment was deceptively edited to make Harris look good, accusing the network of stacking the deck in her favor during a critical campaign moment.
Paramount ultimately decided to pay Trump $16 million to settle the lawsuit, a decision that Colbert said he is "offended" by. He described the move as a “big fat bribe.” He added that he doesn't "know if anything — anything — will repair my trust in this company."
President Trump celebrated the decision to cancel Colbert's program and said on Truth Social that “I absolutely love” that Colbert was “fired.”
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