How Megyn Kelly Achieved a Net Worth of $30 Million
Megyn Kelly is a name that has come up a lot in recent times. As a result, even though Kelly has departed NBC because of the cancellation of Megyn Kelly Today, it will be interesting to see what will happen next in her career as a journalist. For the time being, sources estimate her current net worth to be around $30 million, though of course, interested individuals should remember that said figure is bound to be imprecise because of incomplete information. How did Megyn Kelly achieve her net worth?
How Did Megyn Kelly Reach Her Current Net Worth?
Regardless, Kelly was born in Champaign, which is a city in the state of Illinois that is best-known to a lot of people out there for sharing the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with its sister city of Urbana. However, Kelly wasn’t raised in Champaign. Instead, she was raised in the state of New York because of her father, who taught at the State University of New York at Albany. Eventually, Kelly would go to Syracuse University and then the Albany Law School, from which she would receive an undergraduate degree in political science as well as a Juris Doctor degree.
In other words, as surprising as it might sound, Kelly was actually interested in practicing law before she became interested in reporting news. For further proof, consider the fact that she worked with the law firm Bickel & Brewer LLP, which was followed by her working with the law firm Jones Day. In total, Kelly spent the better part of a decade practicing law before she decided to do something else at somewhere else.
By 2003, Kelly had moved to Washington, D.C., where she had become a reporter for the ABC-affiliated TV station WJLA-TV. While she was working at WJLA-TV, she had no particular specialty assigned to her, with the result that she covered a wide range of both local and national events for the TV station. Eventually, Kelly managed to build up enough of a reputation that she could head for a more prominent position at a more prominent network, so much so that various network executives have stated that she was good enough to get hired at a wide range of places. Something that was particularly remarkable because that was no more than a short while after her lack of experience meant that WJLA-TV was the one place that would take a chance on her.
With that said, it was Fox that managed to hire Kelly. Initially, Kelly worked in various positions such as an anchor, a substitute anchor, and the host of her own legal-themed segment. However, it wasn’t too long before she had her own show, which proved to be popular enough for her to rise a position of prominence at the network. From there, Kelly became involved with various clashes with various figures both within and without Fox at various points, with examples ranging from the time when she was satirized for claiming that Jesus was a white man, which is a position in an old and contentious debate that is more than a bit dubious from a historical perspective, to a number of much-reported clashes with the then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and Trump supporters. Eventually, Kelly came forward as one of the women who stated that they had been subjected to sexual harassment by Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, meaning that she played a part in bringing him down, according to this.
In any case, it is common for people to assume that Kelly’s friction with other Fox figures contributed to some extent to her choice to leave Fox in preference for signing a new contract with NBC News. However, there was plenty to like about the NBC News contract for her as well, seeing as how it offered her not one, not two, but three roles of considerable importance. One was her own daytime show, while another was her own Sunday night news show. On top of that, Kelly would be involved with NBC News’s reporting on politics as well as major events as well, meaning that for a time, it seemed as though Kelly was at the top of her chosen profession. Something that was particularly true because she was said to have been earning between $15 and $20 million on an annual basis, per this article.
However, Kelly’s time with NBC News was nowhere near as successful as her previous positions with Fox News had been. For instance, her Sunday night news show ran for a total of eight episodes before it was sidelined by football as well as the Winter Olympics. There was talk of it receiving a revival later on, but suffice to say that never happened. Likewise, Kelly’s daytime show numbers never managed to pick up, which wasn’t helped by one or two controversial moments such as that one time when she defended the use of blackface. Eventually, it seems that NBC News’s patience ran out, as shown by how Kelly’s contract was terminated in January of 2019. Fortunately for Kelly, this meant that she was due the entire amount from the contract. Moreover, this meant that she was free to work somewhere else because non-compete clauses are illegal in the state of New York.
Further Considerations
So far, there has been no indication of where Kelly will be working next. However, she has said that she will be back on the air at some point in the future. Granted, Kelly’s image has likely been tarnished to some extent by her failed stint with NBC News, but it seems unlikely that it was so bad that she won’t be working in the news industry ever again. Regardless, when more news comes out, there are bound to be updates to the estimates of her net worth as well.
