Former NBC anchor Megyn Kelly called for a third-party probe into NBC in her first interview since she and the network cut ties in January.
The call was spurred by Ronan Farrow’s new book, “Catch to Kill.” Farrow accused NBC of burying a story he was working on about Harvey Weinstein. The New Yorker magazine later hired Farrow and published his reporting on Weinstein, triggering a slew of criminal charges.
Carlson started by citing a recording made by the NYPD that Farrow brought to NBC that showed Harvey Weinstein admitting to abusing an Italian model.
Farrow quoted Noah Oppenheim, head of the network’s news division, as saying: “My view is that the tape and Harvey Weinstein grabbing a lady’s breasts a couple of years ago, that’s not national news.”
“Does that surprise you, having worked there?” Carlson asked Kelly.
“Nothing surprises me anymore, Tucker, in this industry,” Kelly said. “As I’ve watched the Ronan story unfold ... the number one thing I’ve wanted to know is, what they know and when did they know it.”
Kelly said she was reporting on the story while she was working at NBC, including speaking to a number of Weinstein accusers, trying to figure out what the company knew about Weinstein and about Matt Lauer before Brooke Nevils, who worked at NBC, stepped forward and accused Lauer of sexually abusing her.
Nevils said recently that Lauer raped her.
Kelly said she’s not sure if NBC had any complaints lodged against Lauer before Nevils was allegedly abused. She wants to see an outside agency probe.
“They haven’t gotten specific about what moneys were paid out to whom. Show us the money! The number one thing that has to happen now is they need to release any and all Matt Lauer accusers from their confidentiality agreements. NBC says it has nothing to hide, great, let’s not hide anything. Show us all of the agreements,” she said.
NBC conducted an investigation internally but Kelly called for an independent probe, as she did last year on air while still employed for NBC.
“There are questions as to whether they put dollars ahead of decency,” Kelly said. “About whether they were more interested in protecting their star anchor than they were in protecting the women of the company. There needs to be an outside investigation into this company. They investigated themselves, that doesn’t work.”
“You get somebody on the outside that can be trusted,” Kelly said, noting Fox, NPR, the NFL, and other organizations have had third-parties conduct investigations.
She said she’s hopeful that an investigation will eventually be launched.
“People are not screwing around anymore when it comes to the treatment of women,” she said. “What used to be tolerated won’t be tolerated anymore. It’s not like we have a perfect culture like that,” she said, snapping her fingers, “when we recognize there’s a problem, it’s that companies are given the opportunity to come clean, investigate what the problems are, and come up with real solutions.”
