Megyn Kelly Reportedly Demands $50 Million Settlement From NBC

Megyn Kelly has reportedly demanded a $50 million settlement from NBC as she prepares to leave the network after her controversial blackface Halloween costume comment.

According to TMZ, Kelly was earning $25 million a year and the network could end up paying her $50 million. She originally signed a 3-year deal with the peacock network, and has one year and 10 months left. Her lawyer, Bryan Freedman will meet with NBC executives to demand she be paid the rest of her salary or she will sue.

Freedman will look to establish a pattern of negative treatment of Kelly since they hired her. He claims Kelly was “targeted early on” during her time there for making negative comments about Matt Lauer after he was fired in November for sexual harassment, reports TMZ. Lauer was still “well-liked” at NBC and they felt Kelly was attacking Lauer with “glee.”

TMZ‘s sources also said Kelly made other comments about her boss, NBC News Chairman Andy Lack, which made Lack angry. Kelly will also argue that she was treated unfairly after the blackface comment. She claims she was not invited to a staff town hall, where Al Roker and others complained about her.

Kelly’s team will also point out that MSNBC’s Joy Reid is still working for NBC, even after she made homophobic comments in blog posts before they hired her.

TMZ also reports that Freedman wants journalist Ronan Farrow in the room during a meeting with NBC News President Noah Oppenheim. Farrow has been critical of NBC News, which did not publish his reporting on sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein. NBC turned down Freedman’s request, but the meeting will still happen as soon as Friday.

Kelly, who had a history of making controversial remarks at Fox News, ignited a firestorm at NBC on Tuesday when she defended blackface costumes.

“But what is racist?” Kelly asked a panel on her Megyn Kelly Today show. “Because you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid that was ok, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”

Kelly issued an apology to staffers on Tuesday and apologized on-air Wednesday, but NBC aired a repeat on Thursday. Media reports suggest she will never be on NBC again, and the network is trying to push her out.

“One of the wonderful things about my job is that I get the chance to express and hear a lot of opinions,” Kelly said Wednesday. “Today is one of those days where listening carefully to other points of view, including from friends and colleagues, is leading me to rethink my own views.”

Roker said on Today Wednesday he did not feel Kelly’s apologies were enough.

“The fact is, she owes a bigger apology to folks of color around the county. This is a history, going back to the 1830s [with] minstrel shows. To demean and denigrate a race wasn’t right,’ Roker said. “I’m old enough to have lived through Amos ‘n’ Andy where you had white people in blackface playing two black characters just magnifying the stereotypes about black people. And that’s what the big problem is. No good comes from it. It’s just not right.”