US

Roger Ailes On Megyn Kelly: ‘She May Be Bigger Than Anybody’ One Day

Al Weaver Reporter
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In a Wednesday New York Times profile on Fox News host Megyn Kelly, Fox head Roger Ailes lauded his leading primetime anchor, remarking that “she may be bigger than anybody” when all is said and done in the news industry.

Ailes, who promoted Kelly in 2013 to the 9 p.m. primetime slot, was quoted at length in the piece entitled “The Megyn Kelly Moment.”

“We’ve been on the air for 18 years. She shows up, and in one year goes to No. 2 and close to No. 1,” Ailes said. “That is an astounding accomplishment.” The Fox chief added that Kelly reminds him of “the kids I hired here who go to SUNY and work two jobs and try to make it.”

The wide-ranging piece stretched to discuss Kelly’s background and biography, all the way to the future of news, specifically at FNC.

The profile also touched on CNN’s pursuit of the Fox anchor before she was a household name. According to Jonathan Klein, the former CNN/US president (2004-2010), not snagging Kelly for the Turner network early on was one of his preeminent regrets.

“If you’d have asked me who was the one talent you’d want to have from somewhere else, from another network, I would have said — and did — Megyn Kelly,” Klein told Jim Rutenberg. “She just hits the right notes.”

However, it is Ailes who ultimately seems to be ending up with the last laugh with Kelly in tow, alongside longtime host Bill O’Reilly, leading the network to its current heights.

“They used to laugh at us in the mainstream media,” Ailes said, “but we’re becoming the place most people go to get the truth.”