SETTLE FOR MORE
"I am not defined by the network I work for. I am defined by the work I do." — Megyn Kelly
ONE
THE LAWYER
INT. JONES DAY LAW FIRM — CHICAGO — 2002 — NIGHT
A corporate law office at 10 PM. The cleaning crew has come and gone. MEGYN KELLY, 32, sits at a desk stacked with legal briefs. She is a litigation associate at one of the most prestigious law firms in America. She bills three hundred dollars an hour. She is miserable.
MEGYN
(on the phone with a friend)
I billed two hundred and twenty hours last month. I haven't seen sunlight since Tuesday. I went to law school because I wanted to argue for a living, and instead I spend twelve hours a day reviewing documents that no one will ever read. This is not what I signed up for.
She hangs up. Looks at the stack of briefs. Looks at the television mounted in the corner of the office — muted, tuned to Fox News. A female anchor delivers the news with confidence and authority. Megyn watches. Something clicks.
MEGYN
(to herself)
I could do that. I could do that better.
MEGYN (V.O.) (breaking the fourth wall)
People think I went into TV because I wanted to be famous. That's not true. I went into TV because I was dying in a law firm and I realized that what I actually loved about being a lawyer wasn't the law — it was the arguing. The cross-examination. The ability to pin someone down with a question they couldn't dodge. Television was just a courtroom with better lighting.
CUT TO:
INT. SMALL TV STATION — WASHINGTON, D.C. — 2003 — DAY
A tiny local news station. Megyn stands in front of a camera for the first time. Her hair is wrong. Her makeup is wrong. She is holding a microphone like a weapon. The teleprompter rolls. She reads the news. She is terrible. And she is electrified.
NEWS DIRECTOR
(after the take)
Megyn, you read that like a closing argument. This is the news, not a trial.
MEGYN
(undeterred)
Everything is a trial. The audience is the jury. The facts are the evidence. My job is to present the case. I just need to learn how to do it on camera instead of in a courtroom.
NEWS DIRECTOR
(sighing)
You are the most intense person I have ever met. And I've worked in cable news for twenty years.
CUT TO:
INT. FOX NEWS — NEW YORK — 2004 — DAY
Fox News headquarters. Megyn walks through the newsroom for the first time. The energy is electric — a warzone of ambition, ego, and relentless competition. She has been hired as a general assignment reporter. She is starting at the bottom. ROGER AILES watches from his office above the newsroom floor.
AILES
(to an assistant, watching Megyn through glass)
Who's the new one?
ASSISTANT
Megyn Kelly. Former corporate litigator. Jones Day.
AILES
(studying her)
A lawyer. Good. Lawyers know how to think on their feet. Put her on air. Let's see what she's made of.
Megyn covers her first story. Then her second. Then her third. Within a year, she has her own daytime show. Within five years, she is the star of the network.
CUT TO:
INT. FOX NEWS DEBATE STAGE — CLEVELAND — AUGUST 6, 2015 — NIGHT
The first Republican presidential primary debate of the 2016 cycle. Megyn Kelly sits at the moderator's table. Twenty-four million people are watching. She looks directly at DONALD TRUMP, the frontrunner. She has a question. It will change her life.
MEGYN
(steady, precise)
Mr. Trump, you've called women you don't like "fat pigs," "dogs," "slobs," and "disgusting animals." Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?
The audience gasps. Trump glares. The temperature in the room drops ten degrees. Megyn does not blink. She has asked harder questions in depositions. But she has never asked one that twenty-four million people are watching. And she has never asked one that the most powerful man in Republican politics will spend the next year trying to make her regret.
TRUMP
(from his podium)
Only Rosie O'Donnell.
The audience laughs. Megyn does not.
Trump's attacks on Megyn Kelly lasted over a year. He called her "crazy," "sick," and said she had "blood coming out of her wherever." She received death threats. She hired armed security for herself and her children.
TWO
THE STORM
INT. KELLY HOME — NEW YORK — AUGUST 2015 — NIGHT
Megyn sits on the couch. DOUG BRUNT, her husband, reads the latest threats on her phone. Their children are asleep upstairs. A security guard sits in a car outside.
DOUG
Megyn, these threats are specific. Names, addresses. Our children's school. This is beyond normal criticism. We need to increase security.
MEGYN
(tired but resolute)
I asked a candidate for president of the United States a question about his public statements. That is literally my job. And now I need armed guards to take my children to school. Something is very wrong with this picture.
DOUG
Do you regret the question?
MEGYN
(without hesitation)
Not for one second. The day I stop asking hard questions because I'm afraid of the answer is the day I stop being a journalist. I didn't leave a law firm and build a career to be intimidated by a man with a Twitter account.
CUT TO:
INT. ROGER AILES'S OFFICE — FOX NEWS — 2016 — DAY
ROGER AILES sits behind his desk. Megyn sits across from him. The tension is palpable. Ailes has been the most powerful man in cable news for twenty years. Megyn has just learned something about him that will end his reign.
AILES
Megyn, you're making this harder than it needs to be. This company made you. We gave you a platform. We gave you a career. A little gratitude would go a long way.
MEGYN
(controlled rage)
Roger, you didn't make me. I made me. I left a career in law. I started at the bottom. I earned every promotion. And what I am about to tell you is that your behavior toward women at this network — the things I know, the things other women have told me — will come to light. And when it does, it won't be me who needs gratitude. It will be you who needs a lawyer.
Ailes stares at her. For the first time, the most powerful man in cable news looks uncertain. Within months, he will be gone.
Roger Ailes resigned from Fox News on July 21, 2016, after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment. Megyn Kelly was among those who confirmed the allegations during the internal investigation.
CUT TO:
INT. NBC STUDIOS — 30 ROCKEFELLER PLAZA — 2017 — DAY
Megyn walks through the halls of NBC. She has left Fox News for a $69 million contract. THE NBC EXECUTIVE greets her. The set of her new morning show gleams. Everything is polished, focus-grouped, sanitized.
NBC EXECUTIVE
Megyn, welcome to NBC. We're going to make you a star for all of America. Not just Fox News America. All of America. Softer. Warmer. More relatable.
MEGYN
(uneasy)
I was already a star for twenty-four million people. What exactly are you asking me to change?
NBC EXECUTIVE
Just... the edges. We love your intelligence. We love your ambition. We just want you to... smile more.
Megyn's jaw tightens. She has heard this before. She will hear it again. "Smile more" — the two words that every powerful woman in media has been told at least a thousand times.
CUT TO:
INT. NBC SET — MEGYN KELLY TODAY — 2018 — DAY
The Megyn Kelly Today set. It is designed to look like a living room. Megyn sits on a couch instead of behind a desk. The audience is a studio audience instead of a camera. Everything about this is wrong for her. She is a litigator sitting in a living room. A prosecutor doing a cooking segment.
MEGYN
(during a commercial break, to a producer)
This isn't working. I'm not a morning show host. I'm a journalist. I ask hard questions. I do cross-examinations. Why am I making smoothies on television?
PRODUCER
Because your contract says morning show. This is what morning shows do.
MEGYN
Then the contract is wrong.
Megyn Kelly Today was canceled by NBC in October 2018. Her departure included the full payout of her $69 million contract. NBC had tried to turn a litigator into a lifestyle host. It did not work.
CUT TO:
INT. KELLY HOME — NEW YORK — 2018 — NIGHT
Megyn and Doug sit in their kitchen. The NBC debacle is over. The media has declared her career finished. The obituaries are already written: "Megyn Kelly's Fall from Grace." "The End of Megyn Kelly."
DOUG
So what now? You've done Fox. You've done NBC. There's no network left.
MEGYN
(slowly, something forming)
What if that's the point? What if the answer isn't another network? What if the answer is no network?
DOUG
You mean independent?
MEGYN
I mean mine. My show. My rules. My questions. No one telling me to smile more. No one telling me to be softer. No executives, no focus groups, no committee of men deciding what a woman is allowed to say on television.
DOUG
(after a moment)
Okay. Let's do it.
THREE
THE RECKONING
INT. MEGYN'S STUDIO — NEW YORK — 2023 — DAY
A professional studio. Megyn sits behind a microphone. The Megyn Kelly Show is now one of the top podcasts in America. No network. No executive. Just her, a microphone, and an audience of millions. THE AGENT calls from her car.
THE AGENT
(on phone)
Megyn, every network in America wants to talk to you. CNN. Fox. They all want you back.
MEGYN
Tell them no.
THE AGENT
All of them?
MEGYN
All of them. I spent fifteen years at networks. The first network used me. The second network tried to change me. I'm done being used and changed. I'm doing the best work of my career right now, and I own every second of it.
CUT TO:
INT. MEGYN'S STUDIO — THE INTERVIEW — DAY
Megyn conducts an interview. It is the kind of interview she was born to do — adversarial, precise, relentless. Her guest squirms. She presses harder. There is no producer in her ear telling her to move on. No commercial break to provide an escape. Just an hour of uninterrupted cross-examination.
MEGYN
(to the guest)
You said in 2019 that you believed X. You now say you believe Y. Those two positions are mutually exclusive. So either you were lying then or you're lying now. Which is it?
The guest stammers. Megyn waits. She has learned from the best — from the courtroom, from Fox, from every mistake she made at NBC. She has learned that silence is the most devastating weapon in an interviewer's arsenal.
CUT TO:
INT. MEGYN'S HOME — NEW YORK — EVENING
Megyn picks up her children from school. No security detail. Not anymore. She walks them home. Helps with homework. Makes dinner. The phone buzzes with show prep for tomorrow. She ignores it until the kids are in bed.
DOUG
(watching her review notes)
You know, most people retire after a sixty-nine-million-dollar payout.
MEGYN
(not looking up)
I didn't do this for the money. I never did. I did it because I am constitutionally incapable of letting someone say something untrue on my watch without challenging it. That's not a career. That's a condition.
CUT TO:
INT. MEGYN'S STUDIO — NEXT MORNING
Megyn sits behind the microphone. The light turns green. She is on.
MEGYN
(to her audience)
Good morning. I'm Megyn Kelly. I don't work for a network. I don't answer to executives. I answer to you. And today, like every day, I am going to ask the questions that the people in power don't want asked. Because that is the job. Not smiling. Not being relatable. Not making smoothies. The job is the truth. And nobody — no network, no candidate, no chairman — is going to stop me from doing it.
She leans into the microphone. The woman who left a law firm, survived Fox News, survived Roger Ailes, survived the Trump attacks, survived NBC, and came out the other side with the most important thing of all: her own voice.
FADE OUT.
Megyn Kelly worked at Fox News from 2004 to 2017, becoming one of the most-watched hosts in cable news history. She moved to NBC for a $69 million contract, which ended in 2018. She launched The Megyn Kelly Show as an independent podcast in 2020, and it quickly became one of the most popular news podcasts in America. She was portrayed by Charlize Theron in the 2019 film "Bombshell," which depicted the Roger Ailes scandal. She has said that leaving network television was the best decision of her career — and that the only thing she regrets is not doing it sooner.