The Megyn Kelly Show - Growing Up in Hollywood, the Brutal Media Business, and Her Exit From Fox News, with Melissa Francis | Ep. 397

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

Megyn Kelly is joined by her friend and journalist Melissa Francis to talk about growing up as a child actor, her mother's abuse, lifelong challenges of having a mom who is a sociopath, the way her mom treated her sister, stories about her time on the "Little House on the Prairie" set, leaving the Hollywood industry, what drew her to journalism, the differences between NBC and Fox News, the circumstances that led to her exit from Fox News, the brutality of the media business, her husband and kids, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday. My guest today is my dear, dear friend, Melissa Francis. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. She's been on the show before, but we talk news usually. She called in one time. We talked to Dr. Laura about something in Melissa's personal life. And I've never done a full feature on Melissa and it's overdue because her life is fascinating. It's fascinating. And she doesn't love talking about herself. She did write a memoir, but she's really, you know, she's one of those people you try to talk to her. She turns it around on you.

She wants to hear about you. But I got her today. I was like, she's got to talk about herself because she's coming on to do that. You may know her more recently for her work on Fox News, Fox Business. But Melissa's, well, one of her first jobs came when she was just a baby. The very first one was when she was just six months old, when she was the star of a Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo commercial. She had the big eyes and the perfect face and the best attitude. And they saw even at that age, this woman belongs on camera.

Well, she worked as a very successful young actress through the years, landing her best known role as Cassandra Cooper Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, right alongside Jason Bateman, who played her brother, and of course, Michael Landon, who was the creative star behind the camera and in front of it on that show. She left Hollywood behind eventually and attended Harvard University. She got in pretty much everywhere and earned herself a degree in economics, which I just love because a lot of people think she's, you know, just like, whatever. You just went to Fox News. She's like, oh, yo, I have an economics degree from Harvard, so suck it. That's me. She doesn't say that. Then she embarked on a successful career

in journalism as an anchor and host for CNBC and the NBC properties and eventually for Fox. Now she's got an amazing husband. His name is Ray, W-R-A-Y. Here he is in a picture for the YouTube audience along with their three beautiful children. They're very happy family, but her feelings about her husband and her happy marriage are an example to us all. Like these two have one of the happiest marriages I've ever witnessed in real life. And I've actually talked to Melissa a little bit about it. One time I asked her, you're like, what is it? And she said, there's just nobody I'd rather be with. I just look at him and I think there's nobody I'd rather be with. Nobody whose company I enjoy more. How do you keep that alive after all these years? They got married in 1997. They went to college together. How do you do it? So Melissa's going

to talk about all of it, but she's also going to talk about how the picture perfect life that she had on the prairie was not reflected in her real life back at home. We'll get into her story. We'll also be making some news today as Melissa speaks on camera for the first time about her departure from Fox News, which has been all over the papers. Lots of speculation and write-ups about it, about what really happened. Was she in an arbitration with them? Did they pay her, as the Washington Post and others have reported, $15 million for something they allegedly did to her? Or didn't they? Melissa's here to discuss. Melissa, yay. So great to have you here. Thanks for coming on, my friend. Thank you so much for having me. And wow, I don't know how I can live up to that introduction. I'm going to do my very best.

I think you I got you. I think we're good. You know, so fun. Like knowing that you were coming on, I went back through and I was reading Diary of a Staged Mother's Daughter. That's Melissa's memoir. It's so good. But I said to Doug, who read it as well when it first came out, it's so clear you wrote it like your is, it jumps off at me from every page and it's indicative of who you are because you can laugh about anything that's happened in your life. Good, bad, ugly, traumatic, physically, emotionally, doesn't matter. You always find a way of sort of, I don't know, finding a way to laugh about it. And that's, I know one of your life's beliefs that you can't take yourself too seriously. Something I share with you. Um, so let's start back to the little Missy Francis, little Missy Francis was a California

girl. You were a Valley girl growing up. Absolutely. I had the accent. You had to get rid of it on auditions the rest of the time, but I could like totally flip into it whenever I wanted to. I mean, come on, gag me with with a spoon so i can't really do it anymore but you get the idea we said totally and like in between every word and it drove my dad bananas he's like that's not an actual way to speak but we were hardcore valley girls and and at that time we knew it was a joke and people were making fun of us and we loved it of course so you're a california girl you have an older sister named Tiffany. Back in the day, she's three and a half years older than you were.

And you're living with your mom and dad in what's the actual name of the valley? What's the town? San Fernando Valley. The town that we lived in was North Ridge. It was the North Ridge of the valley. It was one of those tract home developments um that was just picture perfect you know we lived over a golf course all the houses like every fifth house was the same as the one five before it you know how those suburbs are built out and it's the kind of

place where you go out and you ride your bike we lived on a cul-de-sac i don't even know if those exist anymore i'm picturing like the neighborhood in Poltergeist. Yes. They did actually shoot that in our neighborhood. Poltergeist and E.T., one or the other, both of them. I know it was a lot of the shots came from our neighborhood. I mean, obviously it was like a suburb of Hollywood, so it was pretty easy to do. I'm surprised your mother wasn't pulling you down there being like, cast Melissa. Melissa needs to be in Poltergeist. She could replace Carol Ann. She could play Carol Ann. All right. So you down there being like, cast Melissa. Melissa needs to be in Poltergeist. She could replace Carol Ann. She could play Carol Ann. All right.

So you're there. You're growing up. Your mom first becomes interested in your sister being on camera because, as I understand it from the memoir, some guys saw them at a carnival and just thought Tiffany was really cute. Well, I mean, you have to understand that this is L.A. So, you know, everybody in town, if you're a hairdresser, you do hair on a set. If you're a painter, you paint movie sets. Everybody is involved one way or the other in the industry, you know, and they kind of call it, it's like a one industry town. It's sort of like living near a Ford factory or something. One way or the other, you get involved. So it's not totally off the radar that most of the people I knew in some way, someone had a job or someone went on auditions. So yes, I mean, as the way I certainly wasn't there, I wasn't even born yet. But the way the story was always told to me was that my mother was online and carnival guy in front of her said, your daughter is so beautiful.

She should be a model. This was my sister. My mom said, she said, go away, creep, you know, was sure this was whatever he gave her a card. And it turned out he was in fact, a really big kids agent. She didn't go with him. Instead, she actually pulled a trick that I learned from her that I use to this day, where she looked at who's the kid that's most successful, whose career you would want to emulate. That time it was a guy named Rodney Allen Rippey, who I guess had, he had some sort of fast food commercial. I don't remember what it was, but he was very famous. This was, again, was before I was born. So she just figured out who his agent was and sent my sister's picture to that person.

And boom, it was just off to the races from there. When I came along, again, the way I off to the races from there. When I came along, again, the way I'm told the story is that my sister was the one that was actually cast for the Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo commercial. And my mom was there with me as a baby as a six month old, there was nobody else to watch us. And they said, Why don't you put her in next to her sister? And boom, I had my SAG card and I was off to the races. So that's in any case, I have no way of verifying that, but it passed muster with the book authors because enough people have heard the story. That's, that's how it got started. Is it weird for you to see, you know, a commercial of yourself as a baby? You know, like,

I don't know. Is that, is that bizarre? You know, it, I don't know, is that is that bizarre? You know, it's, it's funny. It's so that one, I don't know if you found it and played it. I haven't seen that one. I've seen a lot of the ones from shortly afterwards. And what's surreal to me about it is that when I watch it, I can remember that day instantly. No, no, you know, and it's strange. Yeah, because I it's like things that like, there's this one that people send me all the time on, on Twitter and everywhere else. It's like an OJ cereal, orange juice. I mean, obviously they changed the name much later, but OJ cereal. And I remember doing the commercial cause one of the, I did a lot of cereal commercials and I really liked the cereal. So you were supposed to eat it and then, you know, spit it out into a bucket so that you didn't get sick and it and then, you know, spit it out into a bucket

so that you didn't get sick and you didn't, you know, like throw up eventually. I never wanted to spit it out because I really liked it. And OJ's cereal was no different, but it was like, I was like wearing a cowboy hat and, you know, there was animation. So I had to pretend to do things

with the animation around. But, you know, whenever I hear people say they were forced to be a child actor and they hated it, I always, you know, whenever I hear people say they were forced to be a child actor and they hated it, I always, you know, like my antenna goes up because it really takes a lot of cooperation to do that. And I loved it. I really did love it every time I did it. And I have three kids now. Cooperating is not really something that a three, four, five, six, seven-year-old likes to do. So, you know, I don't know.

I just, when you look, a lot of these things exist on YouTube. My kids find them. Their friends find them. We do have one. We found one. Not the OJ cereal. But it is a cereal commercial. You're big in the cereal world.

I was. It was huge cereal. I love cereal. It're big in the cereal world. I was. It was huge cereal. I love cereal. For the pleasure of our audience, stand by. Raisin lovers, it's time for a change from Raisin Bran. It's time for the tasty square things in Wheat and Raisin Chex cereal. But I like Raisin Bran. You'll like Wheat and Raisin Chex even better.

It's delicious because it's got lots of juicy raisins and the toasted wheat squares stay crispier than bran flakes so they taste better wheat and raisin checks is better i love the wheat squares it's about time the american family got a square deal wheat and raisin checks a better way to get your raisins first of all i'm so relieved that wasn't you, that first kid. I was like, it's a boy. Is that Melissa? She looks so different. Thank God. She looks so different now.

No. But then when you saw me, you knew right away because it looked exactly like my daughter, Gemma. A hundred percent. That's what I thought too. I mean, exactly like Gemma. Exactly. It's crazy.

I mean, genes are very strong things. But that commercial you saw, I don't know if you kept track of how many bites I took, but it was quite a few. I love the cereal. I did, you know, like eight or nine Barbie commercials. I think maybe 10 McDonald's commercials, although I didn't like McDonald's, but that was really fun to do because they had this fake McDonald's in Hollywood that was behind, you know, that green tarp that looks like you're at a tennis court. And it was a whole fake McDonald's that was only for shooting commercials. So you would go in there and go hog wild. It was so fun. And you have to think too, if you're doing something with kids and you want them to cooperate, you need them to be happy. So they would do anything to make us smile and have fun the

whole time we're doing this thing. So, I mean, there was one time I was doing a Kmart commercial and I was older by then. I think it was maybe eighth grade. And they let me bring my best friend from school. And we just walked around the store and played with stuff in between takes. Like just having free run of what is this? What is this? How does this work?

So it was very, very magical. I have to say. I know I've never been a child actor, but I do. I can relate to what you're saying only because as a news anchor, when I was at NBC, they sent me to do a segment on Sesame Street and they let me bring my kids and they were young enough that it was still like, oh my God, there's Oscar, you know, is such celeb sightings for them. And they could see Oscar's garbage can and, you know, where big bird hangs out. So I get it. Yeah. Like being on the set of someplace like a McDonald's, whatever. So the guiding force behind all of this though, was your mom. That's why the book is called Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter. And yeah,

I don't like part of me asked myself when i was reading the book you know there's like a fine line or maybe it's not so fine between the the tiger mom who drives her children sets the bar high is like you can do it get up you're doing it do it right i know you can and the abusive mom who goes too far and causes real damage. Right. And your mom did not find that I use is kind of how bad did it get? How did it end? And, you know, for me, it wasn't until I was an adult and the dynamic was sort of like, you know, she took my sister to do things. My sister was very shy. She wasn't like me where she naturally wanted to do these things and wanted to perform like a trained seal. So she was not as successful. And that was very shaming to her. And over time, you know,

my mom paid attention to me and celebrated me and took me and then basically forgot that she had another child. And, you know, many years later, shortly right after I was married, you know, my sister had had a very, very difficult time. She became an alcoholic. She went to law school, had to move back in with my parents, you know, really went into rehab many different times and did a lot of damage to her body along the way. And there was a point at which she went into the hospital because she had really destroyed her pancreas. And at that moment, um, my mom cleaned out everybody in the family's bank accounts and ran. And it's not about the money at all. What it's about is one of my very last memories of my sister was she was laying in bed and she was in so much pain. Um, she had been sober, but it was too late and her body was in pain and her heart was in pain. And I'm going to

try and say this without crying. She said, wouldn't it be so nice to have a mother? And I had been asking her, you know, what could I do? Um, cause it was clear her you know what could i do um because it was clear you know that this wasn't going to end well and all she wanted was you know when you're sick or your child's sick and they just want that comforting from that one person yeah and to think that that person had instead taken all her resources, you know, that might help. Not that she didn't get the care she needed, but that that would be her response and fled. Take advantage of her. To take advantage of her. It's just not human.

You know, it's not something that a human being would do. I'm a mother. You're a mother. I think probably the furthest thing from your mind that you would do. And it's different from people will say sometimes there's somebody that can't help any longer. Her body was damaged and she was in pain and she needed empathy and comfort. And my dad was there and stayed by her side. And, you know, God bless Ray. We, you know, we, we did what we could and we're there. But that to me was just, you know, I believe she's a sociopath and I can't really explain the things she did and the response to us any other way. And so to me, it's to stop having a relationship shortly before that time. And I'm ruining the book for anyone who hasn't read it. It's been out for a while. Shortly before that time. Yeah,

I'm not I'm not doing great on book sales here. but originally when this happened, when my sister went into the hospital and my mom cleaned everything out, I reached out to her and I said, you know, this mishigas has this behavior and these lies. Like you need help. And we need to have an adult, normal human relationship. And by the way, you need to return half the money. And she hung up on me and never called me again. And, um, after that is when I sat with my sister and she said, I, you know, it would be so nice to have a mom. And then my sister died. And at that point, the door was just closed forever. And so it takes a lot to get to that point where I'm not going to ever have any contact or any relationship with this person anymore. I don't want listeners or viewers to think that that is something that I would do lightly, or it's something that's right for almost anyone. Our situation was so extreme that that was the only way for me to, I could see

as I had found this wonderful person you've met. My husband is, I think the nicest person I've ever met to the point where I remember in the beginning, people would say to me, my family would say, this can't be real. This can't be real. I mean, he's just so genuine. I can see why people thought that. He is a special guy, genuinely. And he's fun and he's funny. I mean, the moment we got together, it just felt right and perfect. And we never wanted to be, and perfect is the wrong word. It felt like it fit. It felt like I could be myself. I could relax. I could let my guard down. It's so surprising in a way. So surprising if you think about the damage that your mom inflicted,

and they will have to read the book to hear all those examples, but she was physically abusive and she was emotionally abusive. And so usually a woman coming out of that, you know, mother-daughter relationship would not be in a great position to find a great partner, right? It's just like, you're kind of effed up without a shit ton of therapy. It's just hard, right? To find someone who's healthy to get married to. So how, how did you do that? Like, how did that happen? Cause you're, I've known you a long time, you time. Like anybody, you've got your aches and pains mentally and otherwise, but you're well-adjusted, you're healthy, you are well. So what happened there? I think I got lucky. I don't know. Somebody told me recently that 99% of people who are raised by a sociopath have a relationship with a sociopath. And I never had that kind of, I never had an abusive or

negative relationship with anyone after my mother. I mean, a friend or a boyfriend or anything like that. I think that I got really lucky and I knew what I didn't want. I knew what felt bad. I knew that what felt right, like once I went to college and I had the opportunity to be on my own and create some space, I realized that the most important thing was to be authentic, to just be yourself and let other people take it or leave it. And if you could just be present in your own body in the current time and just be okay with it, it's an incredible freedom. You're not worried about, I mean, I remember joking with you, Megan. I said, I don't lie to people because that would be such a compliment to them. I care so much about what they think that I'm willing to pretend to be or do or say something

that I'm not. You're so fantastic that I'm going to lie. No, you know, I'm me take it or leave it. And I think once I got some space and I got off to college where, you know, I was lucky enough to go to school with a lot of people who were, had very cool things and were also very quirky, and were pretty authentic because they were pretty nerdy. And you just kind of were who you were. Of course, there were people who were ridiculous, but you could see through that as well. So that's instructive as well. And I started to get the idea that,

also, if you are honest and you're vulnerable, people like you better because they realize, oh, it's okay. You know, it's okay that I have these faults. It's okay that I'm also not perfect and they get comfortable and you like them and they like you and life is just so much easier. And I think it was that contrast. All of a sudden I was like, wait a second. It's not hard to make friends. It's not hard to have wait a second. It's not hard to make friends. It's not hard to have an honest relationship. It's not hard to not feud with people all over the place. And from there, it just sort of snowballed. So maybe it was the contrast that sort of highlighted for me what I was looking for. And it was never more true than with my husband. I mean, I remember

I thought I've got to hang on to this guy because I've never met someone who is genuine and no drama, but is also really fun and exciting. Like that's a combination I'll never see again. He always had plans, always had fun things to do, always had friends. We were always going to do something great, but he was super authentic and kind. And that's so fun. He's a fun guy to spend time with. He's brilliant, but he's one of those people at the dinner table who wants to know about everybody else. He never wants to make it about himself. And I like you. He's very much like, no, tell me about you. And how can I, how can I help you? What problem can

I help you solve? Or what's going on in your life? Let's talk about it. Let's laugh about it. So he's very giving in that way. But something you said made me want to ask you this question. So when you recognize that your mother, this is not like an aunt, it's not a sister, it's not, your mother is a sociopath. There's gotta be a period where you ask yourself, oh my God, am I a sociopath?

Is that hereditary? Oh yeah, I think that period just ended about a month ago. No, I mean, it really, I'm not even kidding. I mean, it really was like deep down in there. I mean, I think part of the thinking was like, so if I was the person that was strong enough to finally stand up to her because, you know, my dad didn't and my sister didn't no one else in her life did then i must be at least as bad you know and i didn't even realize i was sort of harboring that inside that idea that this must be in me um and i have had a massive amount of therapy with an incredibly talented therapist whose name i'm not giving you because he already doesn't have any appointments so i'm

not sharing don't share that on the air i never share the name of my therapist on the air because I don't want anybody's trying to like hack him or like try to get, I don't know what records he's got in there. You know, it's just like, see, that's selfish. I don't want to share it. That's perfect. Same reason not to give out your OBGYN. Like there's certain records. It's not anybody's business. Yeah. Right. There you records. It's not anybody's business. Yeah, right. There you go. Anyway, so it has taken,

it took a lot of work to realize that that's, you know, to face that that's what I'm afraid of. And then once I got there, I realized it's not even the right question. It doesn't even really matter if I'm the same or different because I'm not going to interact with the world in the same way. You know, I already have been

and living a life that's completely different. There's just no way. You're not a sociopath. I've seen you with your children. I mean, truly, you could never be as loving with your children as you are and be a sociopath. And your mom was not very loving with you. So it's not like you have a history to look back on and say, well, she was like this, and yet it turned out she was a mass murderer, right? Like that's not your scenario. It's pretty obvious. Yeah. Yeah. Very obvious. So yeah. And then you wonder, I mean, I have to imagine you wonder, well, does it skip a generation? Do any one of my children seem totally without empathy toward others? And no, the answer there is no as well. But I imagine, I don't know if your mom suffered from mental illness officially or how you'd put it,

but like, there's always the fear if it's in your family. And I've talked to other friends who have it in their family that it's going to repeat. It's going to pop up again. I, well, see, I have a completely different perspective on that because I think that we all have challenges, big and small and everybody out there in the audience, everyone in my family, myself, everybody, we all have our challenges. And the only thing that matters is the openness and the willingness to talk about it and get help and look at yourself and the desire to feel better, the desire to live a better life, to be more relaxed and free in yourself. And I am not afraid at all about anything that I used to be definitely. But now that I've sort of, now that I understand my own evolution so much better, I'm not the least bit afraid of anything that might face my kids because I know that the tools exist in the world to deal with anything,

any mental illness. And it's just about going out and seeking that help and wanting it. So I try to raise them in a way where they can talk about their feelings very openly. I think that's step one. So if they're angry, frustrated, whatever it is, rather than channeling it in another direction, they know what it is and where it's coming from. All of a sudden just being aware of that feeling and giving it a little space, it's not so big and it starts to dissipate. This is reminding me of Nancy Armstrong, who came on the program not long ago, my friend, and she's a filmmaker. And her film was called The Disruptors.

And it was about kids with ADHD and also adults with ADHD and how and her own kids have ADHD and how she helped them. And she identified it with the help of doctors. And now the kids are like, yeah, ADHD. I was on this med. I kind of titrated it down. I'm good now. I no longer need it. Or yes, no, I'm still on mine. And I know exactly when I need to take it and how like, they're totally fine discussing this and they've identified it. So you're right. The more we cloak it and treat these things as a secret and how like we're different and we're the only ones, the more of a burden it is. Let me switch gears on one point. Cause you said, you know,

people like you, if you're, if you put it out there, if you're vulnerable, if you talk about this stuff, it occurs to me, you had this mom who did not set you up for success in the friendship department. And I don't mean just making a star out of you like that. That's kind of cool. But you write about how she would walk you in. She would intentionally swing you by school before you had to go on an audition or you're going off to do Little House on the Prairie. And she's like, Melissa won't be here for the next two months because she's the star in the new number one show. And, you know, she she's too in demand now. She's like now that she's the star in the new number one show and you know she she's too in demand now she's like she now that she's six i can't stop the bookings so you better just prepare to get all and meanwhile i'm sure these little girls are like f melissa i'd like to kill her yes we're gonna throw a brick at her the next time you drop her off here she better wear a helmet yes it's not good

modeling right so it's like you probably grew up not not feeling all that connected to little young girlfriends i definitely true i mean you know you're it's both the best thing and the worst thing when i'm doing a show so you know i had my brownie troop and i wasn't getting any badges because i wasn't there so my mom took everyone on a field trip to the little house in the prairie set so on one one hand, they think you're totally magical. On the other hand, they want to kill you. But what you are is definitely other. And it can be good other.

And then it just becomes detached other. But my answer is really similar to the other things where I think I became a single trial learner where I would see what didn't work, sort of be able to process and analyze that. And people don't like that. Yeah. No, I mean, it was quick for me to see that bragging and looking perfect is not something that people like. They get very, you know, kids would say to me, you think you're so perfect. And I would think to myself, no, I definitely don't think I'm so perfect. I don't think I'm perfect at all. But I could tell that was the impression that they all thought I thought I was so perfect.

And I'm like, well, let's experiment, you know, and if you start sharing your faults, which is something, you know, I have to say, I don't want to fast forward too far. But, you know, that was one of the fun things about Fox was that you were, you were allowed to be yourself. And, you know, I was sort of the voice of reason and would call BS on whoever and was very much myself. When Twitter first came out, I started tweeting things that were in my own voice, which was very different from the news voice that we all used to use on television. And Ray said to me at the time, you are fun and funny when we're out to dinner. You are not like that on television.

Have you thought about showing your real personality? And you're like, that's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy talk. That wasn't something we did in news at the time, but it matched with everything else in my life that had been successful. When I showed my real self, when I showed my real personality, when I showed my flaws, I mean, one time at CNBC, we were doing these promotional videos and you were supposed to say, I am this, I am that. And somebody would say, you know, I am an opera singer. I am a this and, and you're bragging. And then you say, I am CNBC at the end. And so I wrote in mine, you will never see my feet. They're the ugliest thing in the world. And they were like, you can't do that. And to their credit, they let me say something like that. And the reaction was both fantastic and horrible. You know, there were people that

thought that was hilarious and were like, I can't believe you would say you would be so self-deprecating. But to me, the lesson I learned was when you put on this false front that you are this perfect, fantastic person. No one likes that. And not for nothing, it's also not true. It's not true. Well, you lived in the most unfair of circumstances because you were not the one putting that messaging out there. You had a very strong authority figure over you who entered the room first like and ta-da here comes missy francis the greatest thing since sliced bread and the little girls are like kill all right stand by because uh i do want to switch to our years at fox and uh before the controversy and all that uh the experiences that we both had there

and when we come back i've got to play the greatest Little House on the Prairie clip of all time. So stand by. That's right after this two minute break. More with Melissa Francis in two minutes. So, Melissa, you hit the motherlode. Little House on the Prairie was the biggest show in America. It was prime time. I watched it religiously. And the original Ingalls children had aged out. It was no longer interesting to look at Mary and Laura and Carrie. They needed fresh blood.

And that is where you landed the role of a lifetime. And you landed it, in addition to your many other skills for one particular reason. You could do something that virtually no other seven, eight, you were eight when you got the role, your old child could do on cue. I'm not going to have you say that. I'm just going to show them the actual scene that aired when you got the part on the night that the first episode and and people can figure out what it was you did here it is it's her parents going down the hill in a wagon dying there goes pa ingles to help check on the people. And Melissa, like a pro, what'd you do?

I remember that like it was yesterday. I mean, it was incredible because they rolled this wagon off the side of the hill and shot it. And we watched it. Of course, the horses weren't attached to it. And then they just did this tight shot of us over and over again. And we had to cry. And it was the audition. Like you go in and they're like, okay, cry. And you just bring it out like no warmup or anything. I don't know what it says about me that I could do that. But you could do it. I would picture like all of my pets dying. I mean,

I wasn't a method actress at the time. So it was like, rather than being in the character, what I was picturing was the wagon was going it was like, rather than being in the character, what I was picturing was the wagon was going down like with my horse and my cat and my goldfish. And they were all just being flown to Smithereens. But I remember watching that at home and kind of hiding behind the couch. And my sister was like, you look like a frog doing that. Do you see her face?

You should be so embarrassed. And I was horrified. But I do wonder like, you know, I have this thing when I'm going to cry, like for real in my life, I can't imitate it on camera. But like, I get this huge frown, like these two, the ends of my mouth pull down like to the bottom of my jaw. Oh, it's crazy. You can't stop it. And it's like my brother, my brother, my husband, Doug, is always like, Oh, boy. And so now my Thatcher has it, too. He's got it.

I don't know if it's hereditary. But with you, you have like, I can't quite do it. But like the lower jaw goes down and like the lower lip is like. I try not to do that anymore. It pulls down. It's so sweet, though. I saw it on TV so many times. And my sister was relentless.

Oh, she was wrong. When she saw me cry like that so i was i would always try to stop that but no it is funny because you know then my kids came along and my oldest one you know was little and he was like supposed to whatever you know do whatever he's a brush his teeth eat a piece of fruit whatever it was and he throws himself on the ground crying and he's got the face and the redness and the whole thing. And I walk over to him and I was like, yeah, that's not very convincing. I mean, what you're doing here is not great. There's no water coming out. Like one of the big things is the liquid has to act and they don't cut away

and give you some visine. Like you have to make it happen. Like I got paid to do this as a child and this is not a good performance. And he it happen. Like, I got paid to do this as a child and this is not a good performance. And he was like, what? You got paid to do this? I'm like, well, not this. I mean, what you're doing, no one would pay you for. But what I did, and so he was fascinated. Meanwhile, my daughter-

As you know, this is my favorite story. And then you looked at him and you were like, I can't even believe we're related. Yeah, I mean, I'm ashamed of this performance that you just, my daughter- Don't come back to me with this again. Right, she busts out with these huge tears believe we're related yeah i mean i'm ashamed of this performance that you just my daughter don't come back to me with this again right she busts out with these huge tears and ray says oh my gosh look at that real tears just boom like she can do it off the old block oh yes yeah lissa's heart is

like beaming she's beaming her heart's pumping yeah that's good this actually could make you some money that's what thompson was interested in he's like wait go on what are you saying if i can actually produce tears there could be money in it for me so you do two years on little house in the prairie and it's michael landon you know we had um you know we had caroline grassley on the show she was amazing when she wrote her memoir when i was nbc i did melissa gilbert allison ongroom who's you know that's laura ingalls and nelly i'm obsessed this is one of the things that first drew us together when you got to Fox News and people were like my god it's Melissa

Francis Melissa Francis I'm like and and somebody's like she was on I'm like I know what she was please stop it with your pedestrian prairie knowledge I am an aficionado I know exactly what she was on I know when she was on she She was with Jason Bateman. She stole all the scenes. She was second round of English, Ingalls children. And then Maureen, our friend and makeup artist was like, don't ask her about it. Cause I hear she doesn't like to talk about it.

I'm like, shit. All right. So I didn't ask for the longest time. My God, it took forever before we finally had the conversation. It turns out you were fine talking about it. But it was like a massive chapter in your life and you had instant fame. And so that's one of

my questions is how was that when you went from normal eight-year-old who sometimes did commercials to everyone knows who you are? You know, it was a, it was a totally different time. And I remember I heard your interview with Justine Bateman, who is a tremendous actress, and of course, Jason Bateman's older sister, and she was talking about when she was on Family Ties, and that it's impossible to understand now what that was like, because there were 13 channels, you know, not even really, it's like 40 million people, but there were probably eight channels because there were like blank spots. And so if you were on prime time at eight o'clock on one of the big weeknights, it was so many more viewers than anything out today gets just because of the limited things that you could watch and people weren't reading very many books. They were happy to turn on the television. So overnight I walked into the Northridge mall and would get mobbed, you know, and I was small. So to just not even be able to move. And then my mom loved it. So we went to the mall a lot and, um, it was put you in your Prairie outfit. It was very overwhelming. I remember that I went to cheerleading camp in the summer,

like not too long after that. And there were kids came outside the door and they were sliding things under the door and I wouldn't come out, you know, cause it was just, I was at this thing alone where we were supposed to be doing, you know, it's like a sleepaway camp. Um, and so it was, it was very overwhelming and probably that's where the, I don't like to talk about it comes from. And that's not really true. Um, although it is true that the whole reason why I wrote a memoir was so that I could direct people to the book instead of talking about it. But, you know, it was- You don't mean like right now, do you?

Or is it- Is it what? Do you mean like right now? Oh, oh, oh. Should I be- Yeah, no, no. Well, it's different because it's you. But no, but I would say what was harder about it was, so that was very difficult. And then it wanes. So I still did, you know, I had two more series after that, but how could anything be as successful as Little House? I did three feature films. I did more than a hundred commercials. I won all kinds of awards. You know, I kept acting pretty steadily into my teenage

years. And then when I was about 15, you know, you hit the age, maybe 14, where everything you do feels awkward. Like it doesn't matter what it is. You just are suddenly super self-conscious. And I didn't really want to do it as much anymore. And that's the kiss of death because as I said before, I don't believe any child actor who says they hated it because you really have to bring it every time to get any role. And I just wasn't bringing it anymore because I was kind of too self-conscious, not sure I really wanted to do it. And then once it starts to slip away, then I want to get it back, but it's too late. So I sort of went through that

midlife crisis, career crisis that some people go through at 50 or whatever at like 17. And that was at least as hard as the sudden influx of attention that then the didn't you used to be. No, I still am. That's definitely what Justine was talking about. That was what she wrote in her book about it. What about Jason Bateman? How was he? Let's talk turkey. Was he a good guy?

Was he douchey? Oh my God, I had such a crush on him. Of course, we all did. I mean, he could have done anything. And I would have thought it was wonderful. I mean, those red bangs cut straight across. I just, the freckles. I mean, I was smitten with him and would follow him around like a puppy dog.

And he liked to hang out with Melissa Gilbert, obviously. She was very cool. And so he did want to ditch me most of the time and didn't have a lot of luck doing it. So that was, that was, that was sad. But luckily, you know, Rachel and Robin Greenbush were the twins that played Carrie and they were a lot of fun and they were exactly my age, I think pretty much. And so we had a lot of fun hanging out and Michael made it really, really fun. You know, I mean, again, you need kids to be happy in order for them to perform.

And we had a blast. I mean, it was very serious when it came work time. You know, we would have fun until he wanted to use the least amount of film possible because it cost money. So you had to hit it on the first take and move on. That's how you were one take Missy. I was one take Missy, but when I wasn't, you know, he would give you that look and you were like, oh, my God. You know, so it was enough about Michael back to Jason Bateman. Did, did you, did you ever hook up with Jason Bateman? Did you maintain a relationship with Jason? I wish no, no. I mean, I saw him a couple of times

afterwards. Um, I'm a huge fan. I mean, I think Ozark is probably one of my very favorite shows. I have so much respect for him. You know, he is one of the few of us who transitioned into not only a phenomenal acting career, but he is, you know, hardcore creator, writer, director, producer. He did the thing that, you know, you get to a certain point and, you know, I talk about feeling awkward. What I, what I didn't like about acting when I got into high school, the phrase that I remember hearing was, I don't like saying someone else's words. I don't mind pretending to be in character and doing something else. But the dialogue to me, I'm a big dialogue person. The dialogue was not authentic. And I didn't like that anymore. When I went away to college, I, we had the career services office and you went in and,

you know, everybody at Harvard was going to be a lawyer, a doctor, or a consultant, basically going to Wall Street. I was like, I don't want to do any of those things. And I saw a journalism internship. And of course, everyone assumed that I had been on television and I wanted another way back on television. And I understand why you would think that, but I realized later what appealed to me was the storytelling. My favorite thing about local news, I love to go out to the tiny town that had three people and the one person who was having the bizarre experience or the really cool thing. And you sat with them and you went into their life and you walked around their house and

you saw everything about them. And then you told their story to the world. And to me, it was, it was the storytelling and it was so much more satisfying than entertainment because in entertainment, it takes you three months or a year or whatever to do a story with local news. You just turned it in a day. And I didn't have anyone telling me what it had to be or no, you don't like that line. Like you went out there

and you were with a photographer. It was kind of like being cops. It was the two of you. You went out to a town. I had this one photographer in Connecticut. He used to say, well, they better not, you know, rob a bank on a slow news day. Cause we'll come and find you. You know, we would dig in on the story and you're like, Hey, I know what we could do. Why don't we go to this place and see if we can track down this guy. And you had a fixed amount of time. You had to be on the air by six. So it was like a mystery or whatever, you know, a choose your own adventure that you had to finish by the end of the day. And it was very similar in the sense that it was a visual and creative art where you were writing a script and there was, you know, the sound and all the different elements that you weave together, like a quote, I mean, like a quilt.

But what I loved about it was that it was so much more immediate and I had total control. And, you know, once I got into news and became an indoor cat, I became an anchor because I had kids and that was fun. But the creative itch wasn't being scratched anymore. That's what led me to write my very first book, which was Lessons from the Prairie. And I actually wrote that in three months. I would wake up at two o'clock in the morning, naturally without an alarm clock, and would write for two hours and go back to sleep. And it was just, that was my process. I would go to sleep thinking about what was the next story I was going to tell?

What was the next chapter? I didn't, I just like set the character, you know, set myself free because I was talking about, okay, here's what we need. What's a story from this time period? I wake up, it would be there. I would write it down. I did it really fast. I loved it. I wrote my second book and I was kind of out the book thing. Wasn't feeling as authentic anymore. And I decided I wanted to write comedy and I started writing scripts. And that was the next step was step was the invention of characters. What would they do?

What would they say that would be authentic? I won a comedy competition, a script competition. That was amazing. She wrote this great script based in part on the news biz. I mean, based all on the news biz. No place specifically. It wasn't based on any place specifically. No, no.

It's just about news in general. Doesn't rhyme with vox or nox um and uh she won the whole thing like these are people submitting their screenplays and their their their drafts from all over the country and she won and so like the a light bulb went off i'm like you know maybe there's something more i can do maybe i can tap back into these creative genes that i haven't been using for so long. That's one of the frustrations of, in particular, cable news. This job lets you stretch a lot of muscles.

But cable news is like you're a one trick pony. You do this one thing. You do it for one hour. You have, you know, 46 minutes of content. You get up and down in the story and you got to move the hell on and not a lot of stretching in the muscles. All right. Let me stand you by because I said we were going to get into Fox, but we didn't quite

get there. But we will. Before we talk about the controversy and by because I said we were going to get into Fox, but we didn't quite get there, but we will. I want to talk before we talk about the controversy and the way you left. We got to talk about our years there and Roger and the news biz. So we're going to do that right after this quick break. Melissa stays with us. We talk about Fox, her lawyers here, if that tells you where this is going. And remember, you can find the Megyn Kelly show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. The full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash

Megyn Kelly. If you prefer an audio podcast to get your news, follow and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. And by the way, today is Friday, which means we'll be sending out our American News Minute. That's my Friday email to you. If you want all the week's biggest headlines in under 60 seconds, subscribe now. Go to megankelly.com. You type in your email address and I will send you an email in about three hours. Send them out around three o'clock. Well, two hours. All right. Sign up and you'll see if you like it. I know you will. So you wind up after a stint in local news working for CNBC, the glorious, welcoming, lovely house of NBC.

And I remember after things quickly fell apart for me there, you like i tried to warn you it's like come on um we pulled a little clip of you with contessa brewer on a show you did uh back in the day it was called it's the economy this one was on msnbc so funny to think of you there but here you are discussing college students well you'll see i never had a roommate in college i mean not one who actually shared my bedroom. So this wasn't a problem for me. But I know for you, perhaps it was. You wish there was a rule governing whether your roommate could engage in sexual activity when you were there. You're saying that having sex in a room while someone else is there, this was a problem for me?

Which side of the equation are you applying that I'm on there? I'm just saying. What is she trying to say? Oh, my God. I don't even remember that. I remember the things as a kid. I would bow. That never happened.

I don't even remember that. That's so funny. So cute. I love your look there. Like young, wholesome. Where is she going with this? Contessa, where are you going with this? Yeah.

I was just going to say, no, but just in terms of your look, that's before you got foxified, right? When you get to fox, they foxify youify you they put the lashes on i've told the story before but i remember i was like i'm not putting on false eyelashes i'm doing news and julie banderas goes get the fucking lashes she wasn't wrong they do make a nice difference in any event you wind up after uh cnbc at fox and despite how it ended like how would you characterize your eight how many years were you there eight um i think it was there nine um i you know i so what was magical to me about fox was when roger ailes originally recruited me

i was in a contract negotiation with CNBC, and I actually had no intention of leaving NBC. I frankly was just going to use the Fox thing as leverage. And he had a very clever way of describing what went on over at Fox, where he said, you know, I let people be themselves, like bring your true authentic self, be as big as you want. I don't tell people what to say. In fact, we have various seats that are filled. There's the brainy blonde, there's the brunette Vixen. There's the leading man conservative, there's the likable liberal. He very much cast it like a television show. And he said, you know, I know how to let people get out there and really experiment and be themselves,

which was very different from NBC, where it was very much in a box, like the way you delivered the news, the note, show your personality. But ironically, it was at NBC where I had challenged somebody on Obamacare, you know, saying that there was no way people's prices were going to go down because if you could do math, that didn't make any sense. And they told me I was disrespecting the office of the president by criticizing Obamacare. So they actually, well, they acted like there's a lot of mind control and voice control over there, where at Fox, there was all this freedom to just kind of do, at least at my level, to do and say and go big. So I did really enjoy that and was able to, I think, develop what for

me was a very authentic voice. I am not a Republican. I am independent little I. I don't believe the government has a lot of very good ideas. I think I am, you know, independent little I. I don't believe the government has a lot of very good ideas. I think almost everything they touch turns to shit. So I would like them to stay as far away from me as possible. And I want to make decisions for myself and my family. But I respect everybody else's freedom. You do you, baby, whatever it is you want to do over there, as long as you're not hurting someone else, you go for it. So, you know, unless you're that Canadian shop teacher in which you should you and should not do you. You could do you behind the privacy of your own bedroom door. Stay away from my kid. I'm sorry. I'm on a tear. Yes. So, I mean, as you know,

that was that's a that's a seat over there. There are a lot of people who are that sort of quirky libertarian area. So, you know, I could kind of, and I also felt like it is so much more honest to tell people up front where you're coming from. You know, I'm very forthright that I think, I think that the, the best things are the best thing for the entire economy for the whole country are the lowest taxes possible because we all spend and give and use our money more efficiently than the government who is, let's be honest, a bunch of crooks. So, you know, and I put that out there. And then when I report on the story, you know, where I'm coming from, as opposed to me pretending like I'm not engaged, I'm not invested and I don't care if I don't have an opinion on tax policy. Why the hell am I a financial reporter? Like I don't care about

the economy. That's what people are trying to get you to believe when they say they're non-biased. Of course, if you don't have an opinion, you're either brain dead or totally disengaged. So just be honest about where you're coming from. And I felt like I could do that at Fox. Yeah. You got hired during the Roger era, as did I, of course. And of course, he was brought down in 2016 by the Me Too movement. And there was discussion at the time about you and I were very close friends, but we did not discuss this. And even when shit was going down with, you know, is people questioning whether I was going to speak out or what, why I hadn't said anything about him.

You and I never talked about it privately. It was like something we did not discuss. It was just people have to understand he was like a cult leader and you didn't discuss the cult leader. And so even though we were close, it was like, you don't discuss the cult leader like that shit is plutonium. And so anyway, it all came came out and he gets escorted out. And the question is whether like what that brought up for you in terms of your experiences with him. You know, it was to me. So, you know, he ate nothing ever happened. In retrospect, then you look at conversations and you realize where he was kind of testing, you know, and I was like, you know, there was a point in time where he said, I just don't think you want it enough. I know there are other people that are willing to do anything. And I was like, what do you mean? I'll work on the weekends. I'll come on holidays. I'll anchor anytime you want, you know, like I didn't get it. So I think that there were a couple of meetings where when I,

and I, you know, gave the language at the time to my agent. And then when I look back, I feel kind of like an idiot because it was clear sort of what was going on. But I didn't really, it was more afterwards when you look around and you kind of see what has been going on. You're sort of seething as someone who I was like, oh, I didn't have that in my toolbox. Other people are kind of either using this to get ahead or being really hurt, which is devastating. And I think maybe another reason why I'm not, wasn't preyed upon is I wasn't a vulnerable person. You know, I have a husband who works and I don't care if I'm on television or not.

So I don't have a lot of weaknesses that could be exploited, but it really did, you know, it destroyed a lot um and which was which was the right thing but it was it was never the same after that but i can't say it also got any better yeah what do you mean in terms of the environment there and elsewhere in terms of that, I mean, specifically what happened to me, you know, the idea that, you know, after he left, they promoted all women within the building. You know, there was a woman running every department. It was a woman CEO, it was a woman lead counsel. It was a woman who was doing better than ever.

And, you know, the marker is you're doing better than the show that comes before you and better than the show that comes after you. So you're, you know, a peak, not a valley, not a hammock in the time slots. And I had that show. I had my show at four o'clock, which was also doing incredibly well. And every night I was on either Hannity or I was on Tucker. So I was, I was thinking, oh, I'm, I'm in for a good pay bump this time around. They said no. So I said to my agent, thank you. Anyway, I'm going to do this negotiation myself. I did a lot of research and I'm a nerd. You know, as you said before, I studied economics, but I also reported on finance and I know

how these different models work. So I sat down and I compared, I tried to figure out like, what is the common denominator? Okay. You figure, yes, people make more if your name is on the show versus if it's an ensemble time of day matters because there's more revenue in the morning and the evening than there is in the middle of the day. Years of service should matter. It doesn't matter as much, but it's definitely one of the factors. How long have you been there? You've gotten a number of pay bumps, all those kinds of things. And so I held steady for every different variable. And after a year almost of collecting data, and by doing that, I asked everyone,

what do you make? Do you know what this one makes? And the thing that people don't realize is that the agents go out to try and get new clients. They whisper to you what they got for this one and this one and this one. This one used to be my client when she was my client, I got her this. So they spread all these numbers about, and they do that as a way of attracting talent. Now, of course, I have no way of knowing if those numbers are true, but when I heard something two or three times, I would put it into my spreadsheet and kind of just see what the pattern was. I didn't know what it would be. And I'm going through and I'm looking and all of a sudden it dawns on me in every scenario.

If you sort by time of day, if you sort by scenario, if you sort by time of day, if you sort by ratings, if you sort by years of service, anything, it comes up. The woman on the screen at that second is making a tiny fraction of what the man sitting right next to her is making all day long. I watched the channel and I thought, oh my goodness, this is really crazy. And I'm not talking about like 20% more. It's like double, triple, even more times what the person next to them was making. Again, these were numbers that were given to me by other people in the building who frankly, they would say, we'll fire you if you talk about your salary. So these were deep,

you know, quiet conversations, or these are from the blabbing agents who tell everyone everything. And so I prepared, you know, to go in and negotiate on that basis and say, look, but in my heart of hearts, like, this is really the crazy part where I say, you would think it would have gotten so much better after Roger left. I honestly thought that the disparity was left over from Roger's days and that maybe based on his whole persona. And he said to a lot of us, I mean, he said to me, I think he said to you at some point, this person's supporting a family, so they need more money. I mean, it's common for people of a certain age to think that way. And women will take less. We agree to less. So I thought it was just a holdover from then. And we were also at the same time on the business channel doing a ton of

stories about companies who went out and hired a consulting firm to do company to come in and do a full review of everyone in the company and make sure that they weren't open to lawsuits like this for people who say that they're not paying fairly based on gender or race. Hold on. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I was I was I thought they would fill me be receptive to this feedback and want to fix it. But that's not what happened at all.

All right. That's a good place to bring in your lawyer. Let me do an ad. Let me do an ad. We'll bring Kevin in next and we'll get into something Melissa's never discussed publicly before, how it actually ended and how it came to be that on October 7th, 2020, in the midst of hosting two successful shows, she got a message in the teleprompter telling her, you are canceled. Melissa Francis is with me today, along with now her attorney, Kevin Mincer. All right.

Hi, Kevin. Welcome. So Melissa decides that Fox might be, they might be interested in hiring maybe an outside consultant to figure out whether the women are being paid less than men on a company-wide basis. And silly Melissa thinks that might be something that the company would want to do. I don't know how many companies would want to do it, but it doesn't sound like there was much of an appetite at Fox.

And you had a conversation, you allege, with Diane Brandy, who was for many years the general counsel at Fox and now still plays some sort of counsel role, as we understand it, at least at this point did. And what happened in that conversation, Melissa? Well, you have to understand at the time that on my desk, there were two screeners from the Screen Actors Guild that had a bombshell and the loudest voice, and they had actors playing Diane Brandy behaving illegally towards women in the Roger Ailes situation. I at the time assumed that she no longer worked at the

company. Like many other people assumed she did not work there any longer. When I said that I wanted to do my own negotiation, they sent me an email back saying, you'll be meeting one-on-one with Diane Brandy. I was shocked because I thought, wow, you're going to put her in a room alone with the woman, uh, you know, to negotiate something. I, I wasn't even aware that she's still here. Uh, we ended up having a, uh, you know, a, uh, voice conversation. I had actually scripted out exactly what I wanted to say because my math and my points, I felt like I wanted to be crystal clear. I didn't want to misspeak any portion of it at all. We started small talk. She's very nice. How are your kids? What's going on? Then she segued right

into, are you going to hand this off to someone else? It's not common for talent to do this for themselves. No, I'm good. Um, and I, I said, you know, look, I, I think there's this disparity and I basically laid it out. Um, she said, well, you know, I want to stop you there. Um, you know, this is not the way you want to do this. You don't want to compare yourself to other people. And that guy said, no, no, I'm not comparing myself to other people. I'm saying that I've collected this data. And I explained just like I'm not comparing myself to other people. I'm saying that I've collected this data. And I explained just like I basically how I explained it to you. I went through how I did the comparisons and what I came up with. And finally, she broke in and she said, and I wrote it down verbatim.

That's how the world works. Women make less than men. That's just a fact. And at that point, I basically fell off my chair onto the ground. I mean, luckily we were on a speakerphone. So I, I just, I couldn't believe that she would say something like this, uh, being a woman, being where we had been in Fox, being through everything we've been through being a lawyer. Um, and when, when I were caught being a lawyer, when, when I kind of recovered myself, I said, um, well, you know, the gender pay gap around the country is 70 cents on the dollar.

My back of the envelope figures seem like we're running at, you know, 200, 300, a thousand percent in some cases. I would think we would want to be doing better, not worse, given where we came from. And she said, you know, you really you don't to, this isn't how you want to do this. Um, I want to help you. Why don't you go back and think about what your counteroff would be? And, you know, the compensation committee meets in a couple of weeks and, you know, we can talk again before then. Um, and I got off the phone. Of course, they had scheduled this meeting about half an hour before my show. And I was just floored that someone, not only would you say that, but you would feel so insulated from any sort of pushback or any sort of punishment and that you would feel free to just say that what's funny is I can't tell you how many people since reading that comment in print have reached out to me and said, it's so funny. Cause that was my exact experience with her. And, um, that rang so true that part. And there were many stories of,

of different negotiations and things where she had said something similarly outrageous. I think it's a, I don't know. I don't want to speculate. It's just an approach in negotiation or something, but it was astonishing to me. Um, yeah. Was it a, was it a tactic? Because it does seem impossible that a lawyer, any lawyer would say such a, such a reckless thing. She, I should tell the audience, the spokesperson for Fox News says, quote, Melissa Francis's version of that conversation is untrue and patently absurd. So they deny it. It is absurd. I agree with that. It is totally absurd that she would say that. I 100% agree with the fact it was absurd. And that's how I felt at the time.

But there was a second step, as I understand it, involving somebody in human resources. So it wasn't a one-stop deal for you. No. I mean, when that happened, I was stunned. And then I was really mad because I felt like I had really given so much time and effort. And I loved my job. I loved being there. I loved my shows.

And that's how I actually started the conversation was, I'm grateful. I love this place. I loved being there. I loved my shows. And that's how I actually started the conversation was I'm grateful. I love this place. I love everything I have. I love the shows that I'm on. I'm grateful for the opportunity. You know, I think that I deserve a raise. This is a normal way to have a conversation. You know, I felt that way.

So then I felt. And you hadn't gotten a raise. You hadn't gotten anything much of a raise at all in like eight years or something. That was one of your sticking points. Very incremental. Yeah, very incremental. But now I had gone over from, I'd been made a full-time host on Outnumbered, which had millions of viewers. Before that, I was a host on Fox Business, which has many, many fewer viewers. So it makes sense that somebody on Fox Business makes a fraction of what somebody on Fox news channel makes. I had been named the new co-host publicly of outnumbered. So all of a sudden I had a job on the channel that makes all the money and they pay the people. So the agents have always told me and the lawyers and everyone else, they pay the people on the channel that makes all the money, more of the money than

the people on the channel that makes less money. Uh more of the money than the people on the channel that makes less money. So it seemed like my expectation was reasonable. Again, all we wanted was to be paid what was fair, not a penny more or a penny less. I felt like there was something discriminatory going on. And I was asking the question, is there? I was shut down so definitively in that conversation with her. I went to HR within the next day or two. I can't remember. Kevin could tell you exactly how long it was, but I marched in there and I sat down with HR who in the past had dealt with me very fairly on other issues. Again, naive me. I thought that I was going to have a conversation and they were going to fix

things. And I said, first of all, here are two screeners with Diane Brandy and she's not sued these people who she's a private citizen. She has people portraying her here doing illegal things and she's not sued them for defamation. So that, I don't know, she's a lawyer. You would think if this was inaccurate, somebody would have done something. Why would you put me in a room with her? Why is she negotiating with me?

And they said, well, she works in New Jersey. What? Things work differently there. That was his answer. She's in New Jersey. I said, what? And he said, well, I can guarantee you, you'll never have to speak to her again.

And I was like, okay, well. And I went through, I said, I'm gonna read you a transcript of everything that happened. And I explained, I wrote down my parts, read it verbatim. I wrote down what she said afterwards, as we were speaking, I took notes and I filled it in exactly afterwards. I read the whole thing and he and another woman in HR sat there, stony faced, never said anything. And when it was over, I said, so what do you think? And he said, well, I don't, I don't know that we have a gender pay problem here.

And I said, I demand an investigation, first of all, into Diane Brandy, second of all, into the gender pay discrimination that I very much believe is going on in this company. And I don't care. I don't need to be on television. I've been on television since I was six months old. I am lucky enough to be in a position where I don't support my family. So I will die on this motherfucking mountain before I will let this go because I am really mad. And they're just looking at me like I'm a crazy person, which I can understand at the end, but no reaction, no response, no. And this is somebody I dealt with in HR who had actually solved problems in the past very thoughtfully. And I'm starting to get the message that this isn't, no one wants to work on this.

No one wants to go there. No, no. And I just stood up and I walked out. And once again, I was floored that they didn't deny it. No one, remember to this this point there's no one that said you're wrong diane brandy said you're right and f you live with it all right the hr said we don't know this is a problem but we're not that interested in checking it out so now all right so let me go to kevin on this one because normally, having worked at Fox News for many years, I can say everyone there, especially talent, has an arbitration clause in their contract.

And that means if you find yourself in a dispute with your employer, you've got to arbitrate. This is Gretchen Carlson's whole thing. Remember, she was very angry that, you know, everything had to go to arbitration and you couldn't put it out in the public. But in any event, in a hypothetical scenario, a person in Melissa's position, angry about this and thinking there's this kind of a problem, would have no choice other than to commence an arbitration. You cannot go into federal court, file a litigation. It's not on the table for you. And also, you would be prohibited from discussing the fact that you had done that thing. You can't even talk about the fact that you filed an arbitration. I know this from having signed my own Fox deals.

So far, do you agree with my framing of the general scenario, Kevin? In my experience, Megan, that's the way it works. So just having understood that, let me just ask you for just for the record. Did Melissa file an arbitration against Fox? We're not able to talk about that. OK, so did everything wrap up amicably where then somebody called you and said, we've seen the light and here's a huge raise to make things better. Who wants to take that? Oh, you're asking me or Kevin? Well, whoever can take it.

You take it, Melissa. Kevin will jump in if you say something you shouldn't say. Yeah, no, that's unfortunately not what happened. I pursued the path that I am supposed to follow as I pursued this. In the meantime, you have to remember it was COVID. They built a studio in my home. I was doing the noon show and the four o'clock show from home. I was on every night.

You know, life was continuing as normal, you know, for a long time. You were working without a contract at this point? At this conversation, I was working without a contract. That sounds, I think that's true. Kevin, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think you had a contract that continued. You didn't have a new contract, right? You had one that just carried over. Okay. So you're doing the show on Fox Business and you're doing outnumbered from your home because it's COVID every day, like clockwork. Yeah's all it's all going along great ratings are through the roof um and then one day um they called out of the blue um called kevin and let him know that

i my honor i should pause why did they call kevin because you you did hire a lawyer that we know yes yeah okay and Kevin, you can say that you were in touch with Fox News. Yes. There you go. We were in touch and there was a process that we were following that was something that we were allowed to do. And in the course of that process, I had had communications with their lawyers as you'd expect. And so I got a call about, I don't know, 10 minutes before they did what Melissa is about to describe what they did. What happened? He got a call and he said that my services were no longer needed on the air. And I said, well,

they can't mean the show in 10 minutes because we all know you can't get an anchor in the chair that quickly. You know, I, I'm going to just go over and sit in my living room for my second show. And then if they want me not on tomorrow, whatever it is, that's fine. So 10 minutes to air at this point. That's right. So, so the lights go on, I have a robotic camera. So I don't have the power to turn any of it on and off that's done from the studio. So the lights come on, the teleprompter comes on. You know, it's funny. My kids used to joke that everybody knew when I was about to do television

because the living room electrified and everything just started buzzing and whirring. So it was all on. I went over, I sat down, I clipped on my mic. I checked in, we talked to the producers. We did the whole thing. They're in the countdown. You know, I was at the closing bell, you know,

so it's five, four, and you're listening, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding on wall street. And I'm about to go and it comes up in the prompter. You've been canceled. And I said, what, what's going on? And all of a sudden everything went dead in my living room, just lights out everything dead. And I was like, wow. Okay. This is, this is how we're doing this. Huh? Wow. I mean, I, I talked to the show staff afterwards and they were like, we had, we weren't told anything. We have no idea what happened. They were left scrambling. I mean, all of a sudden this poor show team had no idea. And they just yanked the electricity on their anchor. They had Conal McShane and he doesn't know what's going on. I mean, nobody knows what's going on.

And they just can't even, they don't know if there was, you know, a bomb blew up my apartment, who knows what happened. But that, that was that. Well, and you got, you've been canceled is such a loaded phrase. It could mean anything. You know, it's like, what does it mean? Does it mean what I think it means? Or is it something less bad than that? I could because I was, you know, the bells ringing, everything was going. And it's just like the prompter changed to that.

And I, to this day, I have no idea who wrote that from where or what. But that's what came up. up and yeah i tried to get my camera out quickly enough to take a picture but it was so and then the electricity's all gone um so yeah so i went back and i was like well so apparently they did not need me to do that show after oh right so you call kevin like anybody would like, holy shit. And then what can Kevin, you tell me what happened. You say what happened after this. Well, what I could say, Megan, is that so we continued on the process. But of course, at that point, it wasn't just the original claims of equal pay discrimination that Melissa had raised.

There were also retaliation concerns that were expressed in the process. And can you just explain the law on that? Explain the law. Well, so so generally speaking, if you make a complaint of discrimination based on gender, race, other protected categories, or if you make a complaint of discriminatory pay, that's the kind of complaint that under the law is protected from retaliation. So you should be able to make a complaint like that and not be fired, not be demoted. So even if your complaint turns out to be totally baseless, you can't be

fired for making the complaint. Correct. The law is as long as the employee is making the complaint in good faith. It doesn't have to be right in the end. It just has to be something that they sincerely believe, genuinely believe. It's not contrived, right? Obviously, Melissa had a very good faith seen doing this for about 30 years. So you're saying she was canceled, taken off the air of those two shows because she was pursuing a gender pay claim or making an allegation against Fox News? Yeah, because of the internal complaint that she made and what she did to pursue that without question. Which would be, if that is true, 100% illegal.

Correct. And that's why the New York Department of Labor is now currently investigating exactly that. And we expect them to have a finding and we'll have more details on that and can talk in more detail on that particular fact. But it was enough for that type of investigation. Correct.

And they're looking specifically, Megan, at the retaliation aspects of this because um based on what we described it was so outrageous and so clear that it warrants uh government looking at it which they are and i think the results of that will speak for themselves eventually and now i want to say this because this um there was a comprehensive story in the washington post on june 19th where they reached out to Fox on this allegation and said Fox said, quote, we parted ways with Melissa Francis over a year and a half ago and her allegations are entirely without merit. We have also fully cooperated with the New York State Department of Labor's investigation and look forward to the completion of this matter. Then they also said with respect to the cancellation, which would result in a few months later of you leaving Fox altogether, quote, Fox News Media regularly considers programming changes, including to its daytime lineup, and will launch new formats as appropriate after the

election, quoting a network spokesperson. And they continue, these changes are being made independent of any other ongoing matter. So clearly, Kevin, what they're trying to say is it had nothing to do with her allegations against them. It's a normal programming change that they make in the regular course. Right. And that, of course, is utter nonsense. There was no ongoing program change in the normal course. Melissa was the only person whose programming situation within that period of time changed. I think this is something, again, the Department of Labor is looking at. And you're not going to have to take my word for it or Melissa's word for it.

We'll see what the results of that. And that will be public. So, Melissa, did the Department of Labor ask you to go testify or give evidence in front of them? Can you speak to that? Can I give it? Yeah. He's shaking his head yes. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they definitely wanted to, you know, pursue the details and try and figure out what happened. Because, frankly, the circumstance that I described, I mean, you would think we were living in the 70s. You know, it was like flashback to, you know, things that you would not think happened again. Um, you know, the, the programming, there's some massive programming change coming by the end of the week that will fully explain why I am the only person who has suddenly disappeared, even though, you know, my ratings were higher than the, as I said, before the show, before and after me, we use as our

marker, all those kinds of things, you know, the, the, on the weeks leading up to it. Um, you know, I was in very high demand. I was on three times a day, every single day from my living room. They went to the expense of building a whole home studio here and getting a camera. You know, they didn't do that for every anchor, much less the whole building. You're hosting two shows. I mean, it doesn't sound like they didn't like you. Again, for the record, there are certain things I know in these situations you can say and you can't say, but I'll ask you for the record, Kevin, that both the LA Times and the Washington Post reported, this is the headline from the Washington Post, June 19 19th piece fox news paid 15 million dollars to melissa francis who filed a pay disparity claim they're claiming that the arbitration ended in fox paying 15 million dollars to melissa um just my back of the envelope math would suggest if melissa as they are alleging here was making around a million dollars a year. She's not quite 50.

Um, you kind of figure out what the actual damages are going to be in a situation like this. This is, again, I'm speaking hypothetically. She's let's say, you know,

women, we all get kicked out of TV when we're 65 because we're women. So, um, that's 15 years from about 50 to 65. And that would be about $15 million. And can you confirm that Melissa was paid $15 million by Fox? So Megan, I have to respectfully say that we can't comment in any way about the Washington

Post reporting on that subject. And we had nothing to do with that element of the story. Yeah. And I haven't run this by Fox, but of course, you know, they haven't commented on the dollar figure in this piece or elsewhere. But I will say if it's true,

the Washington Post is correct. It's an enormous number. And you could argue very, very strongly that it's an admission that something happened, that they just wanted to get rid of you and they didn't give a damn how much it took to do it, given what you had done. So it's disturbing. And I can just say as your friend, I know it was disturbing because I remember when this happened to you. And it was not that long before that moment, Melissa, that you and Ray and me and Doug, that the four of us all went out to our favorite place,

Elio's, and we drowned our sorrows in enormous martinis after NBC stuck the knife in me and turned it. And we went out there and we talked about how fucked up the media business is and how nasty it is. And when you got this message on your camera in just the most heartless way after being at the company for nine years, we did it again. We did it again. The media business, I realize there are a lot of businesses that are toxic, but this one is in a special place, a special place. Well, I don't know that there are a lot of industries still where you would see this type of response and retaliation. Maybe it still exists in a lot of places. I was frankly just really, really shocked by that piece,

especially. I can say that I have not seen anything to dissuade me from my original belief on my original math that I presented before. And I don't know that anything has changed since I left. It just it's shocking. And in this day and age that. You know, companies might continue to operate in this way. And I can see that there is such a danger to standing up and speaking out. And for me, ostensibly, you know, people at box have said to me on solicited, you lost your whole career standing up for women. And, you know, it, it, it is one of those things where I do, I'm started a production company. I have projects in

development. I don't think that another network would take on someone who had gotten in an entanglement of this type potentially, or had this PR. So they do have the power to do that for me. I doesn't bother me if I'm not on TV again, you know, that was very sincere. I took a big financial risk. Um, there was another woman at the company who said to me, yeah. I was just going to say, you weren't looking to end your career. Like that was not, you were not looking to do that. So it's, of course you can handle it. You're a mature grownup.

You're well-educated. You got a great husband, a great living, but that's beside the point. You were not looking to end your career. And the media industry is so tight and it's such a little network, the people who are in control, that you're right. If you get a reputation as somebody who's not going to toe the line, you're done. Your career's done. And by the way, things may or may not have changed, right?

So it's so aggravating because it's like well what what for right what did i do but that's the chilling effect i mean that's what that's where you get your bang for the buck so to speak if you are the person who is if you're the company that's doing this because you know no matter what comes out afterwards people inside may believe that it was true or not but they all saw and commented on the fact that i disappeared from the air and they don't want to be disappeared. So even if they believe anything that's going on inside is true, that's what retaliation, that's why there is, you know, a group within the Department of Labor that's specifically out there looking for retaliation because it's not about what happened to me. It's about all the people still inside who are thinking about it and are like, I think she was right, but wouldn't dare raise their hand in this new company that's run by women and wouldn't dare raise their hand because they're

like, I saw someone else get disappeared. And they know that I was cooperative, well-liked, had good ratings. You know, there's, there's nothing you can come up with to say why. I mean, Lord knows if there was something in my file, they would have already put it out there. I would have read it in the papers for sure. Can I ask you a question in Fox's defense? Let me ask you a question in Fox's defense since they're not, they don defense since they're not Roger. But it was always very generous. And I actually know for a fact that I was making more than most of my male colleagues and that my last contract that was offered to me was definitely bigger even than O'Reilly's because as soon as I left, he went and begged them for it and they gave it to him and he wouldn't

last much longer. But my experience with them was my being a woman was in no way an impediment to them paying me very very well um i i mean i think you mentioned at one point you told me that you know something similar had been said to you about you know why men would make more within the building but obviously right you you proved them wrong i mean as usual you're a superstar roger once said something roger once said something about somebody having a family to support and that's why they were getting more. But I think Megan, you're you, I mean, to your credit and also, you know, I got the idea of talking for myself because that was something you had always done as well and not had the agent in between you. I think as usual, you're a superstar and you're an outlier. I mean,

I'm sure it's serious. You make more than I don't want to stir up any trouble, but you know, it's, it's just, um, all I can say is that I looked up and down the dial from before the sun rose to all the guys at night and compared everybody up and down. And no matter how I did it, there was no scenario at the time, based on the knowledge that I had, where it was, there was no scenario where a lawyer as a lawyer, I mean, I've done these cases too, and I know you're an employment lawyer. So this is not unusual to have one earner, like exceptions to a problematic trend. Exactly, Megan. So it is totally common in these kind of cases for an employer to be able to point to one or two specific cases where, you know, if it's a gender based claim or women have been treated well, or if it's a race based claim where

black employees have been treated well in terms of salary, what have you. But that's not the standard, right? Everyone is entitled to equal treatment. Everyone's entitled to equal pay. So it's not an answer under the law to say that, oh, well, we have a couple of examples of people who are treated in a non-discriminatory way. It has to be across the board. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's like, I was thinking about this melissa because i was thinking a lot of the people in this audience are going to be fox fans and they may not be big on gender pay you know what i mean like the general instinct is like ah shut up you know well you know what i'm saying right so but i do you have to talk about it we have to be able to talk about it i do i mean the

thing for me was um i just wanted to be paid what was fair, not a dollar more or not a dollar less, you know, with any public company when it's time for them to do the press release about earnings. Oh my gosh, we're doing so great. We have so many new customers, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then when it comes time for the union to renegotiate for the talent, for who had the labor, um, they say, oh my gosh, we're turning out the couch cushions on outnumbered to collect change to pay the lighting bill. So it's very normal for a company to try not to pay. I was trying to come up with for myself being an economics person, proof, like a logical reason why I should get a raise. I was trying to find the math of why this didn't make sense to me.

I presented to them without emotion, the math of the situation with men and women. And I even said, I don't know that this is true. Again, I'm getting this from all the gossipy agents and lawyers. It's so hard. They keep this secret for a reason. Yeah. And so I said, I just, you know, and, and you were a couple of times where someone said, what is it that you really want? And I'm what's fair, not a penny more, not a penny less. You know, I, I, I just want parody with the people who I anchored a show on both channels. That's an unusual talent because on the financial channel, you have to have a lot of background and knowledge on that specific thing. They don't just,

I know it's just like Fox news channel. Once you go down that path, like the, I feel like the overall stats are what's persuasive. Cause if you start to be like, I make less than this guy, it's like, well, the audience responds better to him or like, you know, he's funnier or whatever, you know? So it's like TV is such an, I don't know. It's like, no, I agree. Like Roger used to go by his gut, right? So you can't argue with that. But if you look at the stats of all the women against all the men and the case law shows

this, that's an okay way of doing the analysis. And it comes up vastly disparate. That's a problem for the company. Let me ask you this because we're running out of time. How are you now? Like you have other projects going. How are you feeling? And was it worth it? Um, that's a tough question. It caused a lot of, um, it was really, it was hard on my family. And it was really hard on my kids. They didn't know what happened. And so it was, it's, I loved my job. You know, I didn't, I did not want to leave. I never thought that that was where we were headed. I guess I was naive. I have a friend who's a major executive

at another broadcast company, and she has done the 360 review with the consultant to make sure they aren't open to lawsuits. I really did not think it was going to blow up. I was not negotiating. I was trying to figure it out and get what was fair. I didn't feel like what I was not negotiating. I was trying to figure it out and get what was fair. I didn't feel like what I was getting was fair. And I didn't think that was an outrageous thing. I didn't think I was starting a crazy, huge blowout by just asking for what was fair and being willing to accept. Like if she had said, you're wrong, your numbers are wrong. No, you're already making no, who are you talking about? She just confirmed, you know, when I said this one, this one, she just confirmed everything that I had Diane Brandy, she confirmed it over and over again.

And at that point, when somebody says to you, I'm doing something to you, that's illegal and fuck you, you're going to like it. That's it's like a whole, you're like, what? I mean, that's what my whole life changed in that one conversation, her response, that one conversation, my whole entire life changed forever because I'm not the kind of person that can just sit there and let that go on across the company. I wasn't going to do it. Whether I lost everything or not, I wasn't going to do it. And you didn't. And now they'll deal with the Department of Labor and that will be a public finding and we'll hear what their response is when we finally have a conclusion there. Melissa, great to talk to you, my friend, Kevin, thanks for

coming on too and keeping her safe and, uh, to be continued, right lady, come back on the next time. We'll talk about the news. Love to. All right. I want to tell you, um, I think I told you earlier, if you go to megankelly.com, you can sign up for my Friday email to you. It's from me to you week's news stories and some highlights from the show. And you can also email me there. It's Megan, M-E-G-Y-N, at megankelly.com. We've gotten so much feedback about our piece on Blake Barklage, which we aired on Monday. The 17-year-old son of my friends who died suddenly of myocarditis last October. We're coming up on the one-year anniversary.

And I just want to give you a sample. Laura emails in, Megan, I bike commute to school every day and I rarely have to pull over while listening to your podcast. Today I did. I literally felt like you were speaking directly to me, helping me in my own grief. I'm attaching my own son's obituary from last month. I'm a very private person. I've never emailed a host of a show before, but I needed to share it with you. Now I stand here by my bike, crying, feeling for the family you highlighted on the show. Thank you for helping me get to know that I need to let others help and hug those kids of yours. Laura, thank you for that email. And thanks to all of you for participating in this show online and otherwise. Don't forget to tune in next week. It's our two-year anniversary week. We have some really great

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