Megyn Kelly’s Blackface Defense Was ‘Ignorant and Racist,’ Says Today Colleagues — Watch Her Latest Apology
Megyn Kelly‘s Today show colleagues did not hold back when addressing her inexcusable defense of blackface.
To recap: Kelly on Tuesday stated on-air that it isn’t “racist” for white people to darken their skin with makeup on Halloween as long as they’re portraying an actual person or character. Later that day, she sent an internal email to her staff, apologizing for her words. It read in part, “[L]istening carefully to other points of view, including from friends and colleagues, is leading me to rethink my own views. I realize now that such behavior is indeed wrong, and I am sorry.”
On Wednesday’s Today, a visibly upset Al Roker was first to take Kelly to task for her misguided remarks. “The fact is, while she apologized to the staff, she owes a bigger apology to folks of color around the country,” he said. “This is a history going back to the 1830s — minstrel shows to demean and denigrate a race wasn’t right.”
Craig Melvin had even harsher words for Kelly, as well as those supporting her initial comments regarding blackface. “There was some criticism… online that this was political correctness run amok,” he explained. “That’s silly, and it’s disingenuous and just as ignorant and racist as the statement itself.”
Then, during the 9 am hour, Kelly issued a second, on-air apology. “I want to begin with two words: I’m sorry,” she said. “You may have heard that yesterday we had a discussion here about political correctness and Halloween costumes, and that conversation turned to whether it is ever OK that for a person of one race to dress up as a person of another — a black person making their face lighter or a white person making their’s darker to make a costume complete. I defended the idea, saying as long as it was respectful and part of a Halloween costume, it seemed OK. Well I was wrong, and I am sorry.
“One of the great parts of sitting in this chair every day is to discuss different points of view,” she continued. “Sometimes I talk and sometimes I listen, and yesterday, I learned — I learned that given the history of blackface being used in awful ways by racists in this country, it is not OK for that to be part of any costume, Halloween or otherwise. I have never been a PC kind of person, but I do understand the value in being sensitive to our history, particularly on race and ethnicity. This past year has been so painful for many people of color. The country feels so divided, and I have no wish to add to that pain and offense. I believe this is a time for more understanding, more love, more sensitivity and honor, and I want to be a part of that. Thank you for listening and for helping me listen, too.”
Hit PLAY on Kelly’s apology above, then scroll down to watch Roker and Melvin’s commentary.
Megyn Kelly issued an apology in an email to colleagues for a controversial comment she made on her show Tuesday about blackface. pic.twitter.com/0MJUvA1tjZ
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) October 24, 2018
A “journalist” who is over 40, yet doesn’t know the history of blackface. I have some beachfront property in Idaho for sale too.
You know that lakes have beaches, right, genius?
You know that ‘beachfront’ mainly refers to being next to a sea, right, genius?
Nope, that would be oceanfront, Einstein.
Try a Google search and then report back. I’ll wait.
Why don’t you all please shut up and get over yourself 🙄
This is still news? Wow, talk about making mountains out of mole hills. PC culture ruins everything. Free speech is dead.
“Employees don’t have a Constitutional right to free speech or freedom of expression at work. The Constitution’s right to free speech only applies when the government is trying to restrict it.”
Also, no one is saying she is not allowed to say what she did; they’re just explaining how ignorant it was.
Tell that to the NFL. They don’t seem to care about rules and work.
The NFL has decided not to enforce their policy; that’s THEIR call. Tell THAT to the President.
Sad that you don’t understand freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences. Go in work and “freely” say something racist, homophobic, or the like and come back and let us know how that goes, K?
Many of you often mistake PC for basic human decency. It is clear that who remain ignorant to facts will never progress.
Thank you Mary! There are times when I think people are too PC but most times I think most people get offended that they can’t offend others without consequences.
I am amazed at how many people don’t know what “Freedom of Speech” means. Yes you are free to say whatever you want but then you have to be ready to take the fallout from your dumb statement because others are also free to tell you how offensive your statement was.
This has ZERO to do with free speech. Please educate yourself: the First Amendment’s freedom of speech clause protects people from GOVERNMENT ACTION to restrict it. This was not that; this was widespread backlash from an extremely insensitive and uneducated statement made my Megyn Kelly. This isn’t PC culture; this is basic human decency and not being an asshole. And as other comments have mentioned, freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. She can say whatever she wants, that doesn’t mean people can’t react or that they have to like it.
You’re so right. People are making too much out of this and being pc snowflakes. People dress up like the Grimm Reaper for Halloween. Does that make them murderers? People dress up like the Devil. Does that make them devil worshippers? I’ve seen people dress up like homeless people or bums. Does that make them insensitive?
The Grimm Reaper and the Devil are not a race of human beings who have been made into caricatures for generations. Apples and oranges comparison. EDUCATE YOURSELF.
and yes, dressing like a homeless person is indeed insensitive.
Then you need to bone up on what being PC means. Race and human decency should go together. Blackface goes with saying the n-word. It’s history! You just don’t do it. If you do, you take the consequences of behaving like an a**. And one should know the differences.
Racism is not a mole hill.
Free speech is alive and well.. What is slowly dying is the privilege of speech without consequence or reprimand… I’m sorry that this loss of privilege feels like persecution but I promise you its not.. Ms. Kelly said her ignorant thing.. She got called on it.. Will subsequently get dragged for it.. And maybe will learn something from it.. Tho its hard for me to believe a well educated accomplished woman in her late 40s didn’t know that blackface was wrong… I also peeped In her apology trying to equate a white person slapping on blackface to a blk person doing the same… While both are gross to me.. One is much worse than the other…
Seriously!!! She never said anything directly about blackface. She talked about both white and black people in a costume . Get over it people . I think I want to leave this screwed up country!!!!!!!! Grow up!!!!!!
Treating people with respect ruins everything!
You know that Political Correctness is nothing more than a group of people’s desire to be treated with respect. To denigrate “Political Correctness” is to denigrate those who actually treat other groups with respect. Which makes you a bigot.
pc means saying the things that make you feel happy. and suppressing the we want to say
I understand that “black face” make up was a highly offensive & racist practice. I don’t understand why dressing up for Halloween as one’s idol in a respectful way is racist if that idol happens to be a different race.
amen
Hvala ne ne ne.
WHY does NBC keep her on the payroll? This makes zero sense to me.
I bet it’s a combination of things. They don’t want to admit her contract was a mistake financially and in terms of how they planned to use her. Also, they’re already on the hook for a ton of money.
I don’t understand why, either. Her entire run there has been a disaster from the very beginning.
She lost all credibility for me when she had the chance early on to confront Trump re his attitude towards women and just lobbed him easy questions.
When was Megyn Kelly ever credible? Long before she parlayed being insulted by Trump into a undeserved, high paying career at NBC, she was a run of the mill Fox News fembot. She routinely dismissed and rolled her eyes at black activists she interviewed, said claims of racial discrimination aren’t real and had stoked the racist fears of Fox viewers while spewing skewed facts and just plain lies. Remember the “Jesus and Santa were white” idiocy she declared as fact? That’s one of the least stupid and offensive things she’s said.
Kelly was never ever credible. She’s a phony and a racist. Plain and simple. Her true feelings came out yesterday and I suspect they’ll surface again. A leopard never changed its spots.
I don’t even know of many black people who lighten face to go as white people for Halloween. It would have been better if she also gave an example and then discussed.
Two black friends of mine went out for Halloween as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird back in the day. Yes, he whitened his face. Funniest part of the photo was the short shorts though.
She’s an idiot. But NBC is a bigger idiot for offering her so much money and keeping her on. It is obvious she just doesn’t have the talent and charisma to helm a morning talk show so she has to invest it with controversy to get any attention.
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Also why does she keep trying to conflate ‘whiteface’ with ‘blackface’ like it is a real thing? Google ‘whiteface’ you get pictures of a mountain. Google ‘blackface’ and that is horse of a different color (ba-dum-bump!)
Honestly, any kind of face is offensive. Black, white, Asian, etc. I mean we’re in a age where we should know better. Did it happen in the past? Yes. But what’s done is done, we can’t go back to the past and rewrite it. The only thing we can do now, is not wear faces with the purpose of ridicule or offence.
Exactly and that goes for everyone.
Add redface and brownface to the list. Crazy, lazy racists like to dress up as Native people and Hispanic people, too. Dressing up to demean people of other races and cultures is never funny, just sad and pathetic. You don’t have to be smart or sensitive or anything except a human being to see that.
And the A-Holes just keep on coming!
At least ABC had the rocks to kick Roseanne to the curb. And Megyn’s show isn’t even highly rated.
I feel like people are making way too much of this and are not being fair to Kelly. So if you blackface for halloween, which people have been doing for decades, it suddenly is racist? People dress like the Grimm Reaper. Does that make you a murderer? I’ve seen people dress like homeless bums. Is that insensitive?
This isn’t her first rodeo with racially ignorant comments. And she’s a 40 something-year-old journalist who should know better. Not some a five-year-old kid who wouldn’t. So no, no one is being unfair to Megyn Kelly
You can keep making this comparison in these conversations all you want, it’s not going to make it any more valid an argument.
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So if you blackface for halloween, which people have been doing for decades, it suddenly is racist? – Yes. Always has been, always will be. Period. End of story.
Why does the grim reaper keep coming up? Do you people not really know the difference? Maybe go back in history & read up a little. What you’re doing is making someone of a different skin color, a caricature instead of an actual human being.
It’s not “suddenly” racist. It was always racist. Now it’s just harder for white people to get away with it.
No, not suddenly. It’s always been racist. I just don’t understand why she even brought it up. It’s not like this is an issue people were actually wondering about. It would have made more sense for her to start a conversation about culture appropriation. At least that’s an actual national conversation right now.
I agree with raddadtone. She is a seasoned journalist. She should know better.
Ridiculous. What next, burn every print of Sidney Tolar and Warner Oland portraying Charlie Chan and John Wayne as Ghengis Khan? How about Troian Bellesatius playing white on Pretty Little Liars? Carol Channing playing Dolly Levi? It’s pretending with all available accoutrements.
Troian nor Ms. Changing could control their genetics.. Personally I’d be happy if i saw the former in a show where one of her parents is black or mixed race black.. But ides are you’d just have a bunch of confused ppl pulling up her bio tryna figure out why this “white girl” is play acting.. But that still isn’t the same as blackface
So was the Wayans’ White Chicks racist? Where was that outrage?
Exactly
Gosh, she must be new at this “journalist” thing.
The headline says it all with “her latest apology.” Geez.
“I have never been a PC kind of person” apparently = “I’ve always been racist.”
HEY AL, SHE WAS WRONG… SHE SAID SHE WAS SORRY… YOU WANT MORE…WELL LETS GET EDDIE MURPHY AND THE WAYNE BROTHERS TO SAY THERE SORRY FOR WHAT THEY HAVE DONE WITH “WHITE FACE”
Black face, white face, green face purple face….. get a life people. Who cares!
@ananavarro twitted a similar thing,asking Elizabeth Warren to dress as a Native American for Halloween and CNN has not asked her to apologize. I applaud this station for letting megyn go. Its the responsible thing to do.
Duh
I don’t understand what is wrong with a white person dressing up as a famous black person for Halloween, or vice versa. My blond hair, blue eyed female cousin dressed up as her favorute musician, Prince, one Halloween. She loved him. She darkened her skin & applied fake facial hair. How is that racist? Old time “black face” was def offensive & racist. Why is dressing as a famous person / idol who you love & respect?
Is it now offensive for drag queens to dress as women? Arguably they are appropriating female culture & mocking some negative gender stereotypes about women. Correct?
This is getting out of control. Why is it that the blacks can say and do what they want and a white person can’t. Megan Kelley was talking about when she was young, she didn’t say anything wrong. Does everyone have to watch what they say and do now. To me if you say something about how the past was isn’t wrong.
So white people can’t paint their face black for Halloween becuase it’s racist, but a man can dress as a woman and gets a “woman of the year” award?
Before she went on the air other people saw and read everything she was going to talk about so all should be fired too someone should’ve stop her , no its not ok ,Ted Danson dress up with Whoppi with blackface dumbest thing to do but he thought it was ok because he was dating Whoppi not cool if you want to keep your job people watch what you say and how you say it that’s freedom of speech 2018
I heard Megan Kelly’s apology and I do feel it was sincere. We have accepted apologies for much more “indignity or injustice” and allowed people to continue in their profession. What she said was wrong, I agree, she should be punished (off air for a while) but allowed to continued with her career on tv. In private sector, a mistake would hopefully be allowed, reprimanded and move forward. Her public apology should suffice.
What about the show ‘Hamilton’? What is the point of black actors portraying the white founding fathers of America?
This race issue has gotten out of hand to the point of overkill.