Hollywood agents steering clear of booking clients for Megyn Kelly’s show: Report

Hollywood agents are having their celebrity clients steer clear of Megyn Kelly’s hour of NBC’s “Today” show, Variety newspaper reported on Friday, although network officials say that claim is nonsense.

Variety said that it had spoken with a number of sources who said basically that a combination of low ratings, a confused — at best — vision for the show’s direction and Tinseltown’s aversion to conservative-leaning Fox News have them steering their clients clear of Ms. Kelly, a former reporter and host at the network.

“Kelly didn’t fit into a box like Ellen DeGeneres or Dr. Oz. And as a result, not too many celebrities jumped onboard,” Variety explained, summarizing the sentiments of unnamed sources in the entertainment industry.

“I’m not booking anyone on her show,” an anonymous publicist told Variety. “I literally haven’t pitched anyone even from right out the gate. The buzz that is out there is so bad.”

For its part, NBC downplays the naysaying of Hollywood insiders, pointing to high-profile guests coming up for Ms. Kelly to interview, including Alec Baldwin, who of late has had recurring appearances on “Saturday Night Live” lampooning President Trump.

While Ms. Kelly enjoyed a measure of success on cable television with her mix of news analysis and hard-hitting interviews, her on-again/off-again feud with Mr. Trump during the 2016 election campaign appears to have turned off a significant portion of her conservative fan base, with conservatives like Mark Simone gleefully tweeting about Ms. Kelly’s lackluster ratings.

“Megyn Kelly ratings down 33%,” said the conservative talk-show host in an Oct. 11 tweet. “The show is so unappealing even Harvey Weinstein closed his robe.”

On the other side of the spectrum, far from feeling sympathy for Ms. Kelly for having been the target of Mr. Trump’s ire, critics on the left are unwilling to forgive the journalist for on-camera pronouncements while at Fox which they say prove she is a biased right-winger.

For example, the left-leaning media criticism site Raw Story in January compiled a list of the “7 Most Ridiculous Moments” Ms. Kelly had on the Fox network, saying her move to a “respectable” outlet like NBC does not “erase any of the ridiculous and inflammatory statements she made during her time on the right-wing cable news network.”