Tamron Hall Dishes On ‘Today’ Show Exit: “I Wasn’t That ‘Something Else'”
Tamron Hall claims to have “no ill will” toward Megyn Kelly, as she told People magazine this week. Despite begin ousted at the top of the morning ratings from the third hour of NBC’s Today to pave the way for the ill-fated Kelly segment, Hall survived, and now will have her own syndicated daytime show bowing in September.
That’s not to say things weren’t rocky when she first was let go. “I felt that some of the offers that were coming in were insulting after 25 years in the business,’ said Hall, speaking to George Stephanopoulos today on ABC’s Good Morning America.
But, she said, “They made [Kelly] an offer she shouldn’t refuse. And they made me an offer I could refuse.”
The interview marked Hall’s first appearance on a TV morning show since February 2017, when she opted not to renew her contract after learning she would lose her Today spot. During her time off, she married and had a baby, Moses, and watched as the Kelly segment crashed and burned.
Related stories
'Tamron Hall' Syndicated Daytime Talk Show Gets Fall Premiere Date
“This is my first time on live television in 2 1/2 years,” Hall said. “And when I left my last job, there’s a photo of me leaving, walking across I think Fifth Avenue, and I look at that picture and I was just in a fog. I didn’t know what was next. I had no idea. I had not started dating [now-husband] Steven [Greener] and not going through this journey to make [son] Moses, and I knew I had to lose what was the most important thing.”
Hall claimed she has worked since age 14, but was shocked when she “ended up just losing it all. You feel like you’ve — you have answered the calls and go in and suddenly you’re not the person they want. And I had to look myself in the mirror and say, ‘but am I still Tamron’ if there’s no name beneath my card, if it doesn’t say a show. And I decided I’m still Tamron.”
Despite her outward denials, there’s an undercurrent of bitterness in some of the stories.
“The last week I was on Today, I filled in for Savannah Guthrie, who’d gone on maternity leave. I filled in for Lester Holt [on NBC Nightly News], all while I was doing my MSNBC show plus shooting Deadline Crime,” said Hall.
“So I’m putting in all the work and then I’m told, ‘It doesn’t matter that you came in every time we called. We want something else.’ I wasn’t that ‘something else.'”
The Today third hour had topped its time slot for seven straight weeks with Hall and Al Roker when the Kelly news broke. The ratings quickly headed south, and Kelly eventually was fired for a comment perceived as defending blackface.
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
