Megyn Kelly Admits She Was Asked to Twirl for Fox News’ Roger Ailes: 'God Help Me, I Did it'
Megyn Kelly is remembering the “demeaning” moment that Roger Ailes asked her to twirl for him in her office.
The former Fox News anchor, one of many who accused the late Fox News CEO of sexual harassment before his death, recently sat down with a handful of other Ailes’ alleged victims — including Juliet Huddy (former host of Fox News’ The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet), Rudi Bakhtiar (former Fox News reporter) and Julie Zann (former associate producer of Fox News Live) — for a roundtable discussion about the Bombshell, the big-screen movie that dramatizes the real-life experiences with sexual harassment the women faced at the network.
Their wide-ranging, emotional chat was filmed for a special, set to drop in full on Kelly’s YouTube channel on Thursday afternoon.
A trailer for the interview was released by Kelly earlier in the day on Thursday.
In the teaser clip, Kelly talks about “the infamous spin inside of Ailes’ office” depicted in the film, in which Ailes would allegedly ask women to twirl around for him while he would look at their bodies.
“I was asked to do the spin and God help me, I did. I know people think it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, you spin around.’ But I remember feeling like, ‘I put myself through school; I was offered partnership at Jones/Day, one of the best law firms in the world; I argued at federal courts of appeal all over the nation; I came here, I’m covering the United States Supreme Court; I graduated with honors in all of my programs and now he wants me to twirl?’ And I did it.”
“It was like, if you don’t get how demeaning that is, I can’t help you,’ ” Kelly said.
Kelly, Zann, Bakhtiar and Huddy said they all recalled similar interactions with Ailes to the one depicted onscreen while they worked at Fox News.
“He never did the twirl thing to me,” said Huddy. “He would just say, ‘Turn around and let me see your ass. You’re too skinny, gain some weight.’ That kind of stuff.”
“I was asked to twirl, and I did it,” said Zann.
Bakhtiar, who formerly worked at rival news network CNN, said that Ailes “asked me to get up and turn around, and I didn’t do it. I didn’t get up and turn around, but he did ask me.”
The trailer also shows the women and Kelly’s husband Douglas Brunt watching Bombshell, which has been nominated for numerous awards this season, including the upcoming Screen Actors Guild Awards.
“This was the way it worked, everyone would tell you, ‘Don’t complain about sexual harassment because you’ll lose your job,’ ” Bakhtiar recounted in the trailer.
“Watching this picture was an incredibly emotional experience for me, and for those with whom I saw it,” Kelly wrote on Instagram in December. “Sexual harassment is pervasive in this country; it can leave scars that do not heal. My heart goes out to those who’ve gone through it, who I hope might find some comfort in this story.”
Bombshell is out in theaters now.
