Politics and prose. On behalf of our great staff we welcome you all and we want to thank our friends and partners, we love doing events here. How many of you have been to an event here before . All right. I can see why youre coming back. Its one of our favorite venues and specially excited for tonights event. So i think youve been given introductions on how this is going to proceed. We are really honored and pleasure to host a woman recognized by millions of people across the country and around the world, most of us and most of you know her as one of the most influential and toughest journalists in television. Shes also a former highpowered lawyer. Shes a mother of three and perhaps most important shes also an author. T thn kelly is here to talk settle more more is a memoir and the one thing i can say with assurance being on the Book Business is that theres an art to writing a memoir. Theres even more of an art to writing a good memoir and more of an art writing a great memoir. It has to tell the truth memoir. Through her career as a successful lawyer. Evolution in her role as professional woman. And one other very important point about this book, it is really, really funny. She survived some of the most challenging environments. She said to work in some of the very contentious people she has covered, im not mentioning any names. [laughter] theres much more of megyns story, megyn, if theres any consultation, i dont know if any have followed the story of pizzagate. We know a little thing or two about the real consequences of fake news stories and we are with you. We are with you and we havent experienced half of what she has. But anyway, to help us get to the heart of her book and story, we are lucky to have with us another superb broadcast journalist, katty kay. Shes a bbc anchor on world news america. We are delighted that katty will be in conversation with megyn, welcome in inviting the two exceptional women. [applause] lets rerun it. Lets rerack that. Thats how we are opening the kelly file tonight. Yeah, theres so much criticism and negative walking in a room where everyone loves you, thats so great. The book tour has been the opposite of the internet. [laughter] thank you all for coming on winters monday night. We are specially appreciative that youve joined megyn and i here. I know megyn and its a real treat to have me sit here and talk with her for an hour. I have your questions to and i will throw them randomly during the course of the evening. I read settle for more over the course of the weekend. Its funny, honest. I have to admit, megyn, when i was first asked to do this how does somebody of your age write a memoir, youre just starting in life. Theres a stier to that because originally i was going to write about a segment and we see millennials who cant function if they suffered any sort of offense and it was irritating me. It really gets under my skin and i call them cupcake nation. The more i start today write about that, theres a reason why im like this and theres a reason i feel this way and i actual thought i can explain it to people if i walk them through how i got to this place and why i find the cupcake nation thing objectionable and deeply problematic for society and for those 240 20yearolds. Adversity is an opportunity to grow and become stronger and, you know, just take where lisa had left off. If i had had no adversity and had parents that kept me in protective bubble, how do you think i would have handled the last year, i would have been crying under my desk. The reason why i was able to handle that is because i had been through iterations of that before. Lets go back and start at the beginning in albany, new york. Almost british. [laughter] i say that as a complement. My mom is one of the stars in the book. What i love about your parents is the idea that inculcated in you, the idea that you werent particularly special. I like that. Not everybody is a winner. I hate that. Right. And i think that youre the the values that you have compared to the value we both have kids. The world that our kids live in where you get a trophy for showing up for the game. Right. It drives me kind of crazy. Ive had enough of that. I certainly didnt grow up with that. My parents, youre not so special, it was like you dont seem that special so far and thats just fine by us. We are openminded to specialness, but we dont see it yet. And that was a gift to me because honestly i felt zero pressure to achieve or succeed growing up. I could tell they wanted me to be happy. You did have to be funny. Good sense of humor and engaged and you werent allowed to sit like a plotted plant in the table. Beyond that, it was you seem happy, are you happy, good, good luck. And that worked out very well for me and so, you know, that all started with my mom and dad, and by the way, on the participation trophies, it wasnt if you achieved, they didnt give you praise. There was no pressure to achieve. Your older brother and sister, all your family, this is about megyns family, your book. Tell a story about how your dad he would get you and ask you what had gone on in your day and your older brother and sister would Say Something and it would be megyns turn and you would go on and on and on. Shes talked enough, shut her up. Make her shut up, theyd say. My dad who was an educator. He thought ph. D students in education all five of us had dinner together every night. My dad would say to everybody, whats the report. My brother and sister and myself. Whats the report. Pete and suzanne would give a few answers. Sure enough and i would go on and on, they would say make her shut up and my dad would say, you had your chance and hed say and now you will listen to her. [laughter] and actually my friend proposed naming my book that. [laughter] you paint megyn a picture of a happy family but theres two incidents that really struck me during the course of your childhood and we should talk about those and the first was what happened when you got into seventh grade. Youve been surrounded by friends and go to school and then band. But for you seventh grade was a nightmare. The Second Chapter in the book and its about my seventh grade year. Its called mean girls in the book and honestly its still hard to talk about to this day and so now i just turned 36 on november 17th and that happened when i was 12. Dont make me do the math. I can still get teary about it when i think back on what happened. I had always been somewhat popular. I never really struggled. I was not attractive at all. I had no appearance currency. You know, i was never one of those girls, oh, my gosh, shes so beautiful. My parents was like shes going to be with us for a long time. This is why the book is so great. You talk about putting on weight and having acne. Huge space between my two front teeth. Dont u you want to have that fixed . Im going to go with my mom. I grew up unattractive. I was kind of chunky. My hair was hideous. Thats my friends fault. Anyway, i didnt look good. You have to not picture this version of me where there are two people over there. They pay to make me look good. Everybody here would look glamorous if they had people that they paid. So i did have currency in my personality and my friendships, like that to me was important to my own ego and sense of self and worth and for whatever reason. Everyone here has been to seventh grade. The group turned on me. So many people said why and the Group Requires no reason nor do they really provide an explanation. They just turn and i went from being a popular girl to being an object of disgust for them. I mean, it was it wasnt that they didnt want to hang out with them it was because i repulsed them and you could just feel it as i would walk to the halls and they would throw things at me and constantly make comments about my bod, about my skin and culminated in this horrible episode where i was let me just couch this by saying, i know that people have had it so much worse. Please understand, i know that. But at the time i didnt have that perspective. But i was home with my parents on a saturday night and the leader of the group, she was having a party and she said, megyn, do you know where all the people from my party are and i said, no, and they all yelled into the phone, we are here. Honestly, i can still get upset about it. To this day it was so cruel and i was feeling so vulnerable and my parents were watching me and i hadnt discloses to them even that i was being bullied never mind to this extent and i went out on the backyard and it was a cold snowy night in the winter and i skated on top of the snow which had been iced over just with tears streaming down my face in the darkness and felt so isolated and alone and targeted and i read in the book, it didnt stop in the spring when a beautiful angel named heather shepherd came and sat with me at lunch and befriended me for no particular reason. She did and my mom by that point knew something about the bullying and said, all you need is one, you know, and she befriended me and changed everything for me. She really changed everything for me, and do you know that we remained friends for years. I never really articulated to her how grateful i was for that until really this book and she knows my mom, they both live in albany still and she read it and she called my mom and said, you know, she helped me too which meant so much to me. To this day, i cannot tolerate bullies and i do think one upset what . [laughter] and youve done a little more. I think outside of the bullying, there are a few. I would not recommend this. I do have empathy for people. I have empathy for true victims of, you know, negative events. Thats not to say that i believe in i dont like the word victim. Even if you have been victimized its just a selfdefeating word that can mess with your head but i do have empathy through people that have had hard times. One question that i have read, you are clearly close to your mom, why do you think you didnt . I was ashamed. Amazing. I felt i felt their repulsion. I started to believe that i was repulsive and i was doing it all wrong. It was your fault. It was my fault. I wasnt likable and that was an area in which my parents did value that. They wanted me to have friends like normal parents. While they were saying they would never be attractive. I was about 7 and my mom said, i know a girl that didnt brush her hair today and i was like out i went. She didnt make me brush it. I would make her brush her hair for the record. They didnt put any pressure on me to look good but there was an understanding that i should have friends. I felt embarrassed that i didnt. Your dad died when you were young and you clearly had a very Good Relationship with him. But and i think for those who can read the book, the night he died you had a yeah. You routed your died when he died. Yeah. That actually is a story i never told publicly before, before this memoir and i wrestled with it, you know, i really wasnt sure how much i wanted to discloses of about that night. Not because of people like you sitting here, people who are openminded and i hope kindhearted and hopefully can view me through if not a generous lens but neutral lens. I certainly didnt want them messing with my fathers death. This is what it is like to be a public figure and a private figure if you discloses yourself publicly. But i thought it was integral of what i am. I thought, maybe it makes you feel better when you know that somebody you can relate to has had a similar circumstances. For the record my dad and i have had a beautiful relationship. I was only 15 when he died. He was 45. He was no heart problems. He was fine and ten days before christmas 1985 he dropped dead of a heart attack and it was a stupid fight and it was over a class ring. I was being a stupid 15yearold girl who wanted a nicer class ring than we could afford and he was telling me, we cant afford that nicer wring and ring and i wouldnt let it go and he had had it and he turned and walked out of the kitchen and he never got mad, i mean, he wasnt that kind of parent. My mom, on the other hand, she would get mad, but he turned and walked out and i walked past him in the living room to go upstairs to my room to my bedroom and my last sight of him was he was staring at the Christmas Tree in the living room, a good man alone. And thats just something that i have to live with and in those terms because the next thing that happened my sister came into my office my room and said, wake up, daddy had a heart attack. And he was never revived. You know, i where in the book about going to the hospital and, you know, i dont know if you ever lost anybody but going in there and seeing him having a chance to say goodbye, how strong my mom was, my mom who is 14 years old at the time, she has three kids, theres me, 145yearold me and shes a nurse at the va. She does not have a lot of money and my dad had just canceled the major insurance policy we had because he was like im 45yearolds and he didnt it wasnt a heart parent. Patient. So we had money problems facing us and my mom knew that as well. She was such an example for me in those moments, not by preaching, she was she fever said never said to me, you must be strong. We are having a they therapy session here. You to function in the face of upset. Upset but functioning in the face of it. That is something i can do. You talk about how she doesnt, shes strong and incredibly strong after your father died but you tell a story about how youve been a lawyer and jumping for several years now and you get to new york and youve been in chicago and when you cry youre lonely and your apartment is cold and at the first night shes super sympathetic. She said, the third night she said megyn, stop playing the victim, not attractive. And man, did that jolt me out of this selfpity party. You know, she had been there, empathetic. Now youre being ridiculous. Toughen up butter cup. I think about it till this day. Toughen up butter cup is what i want to say to everybody in the millennial generation. Do you say that too your kids . Theyre 3, 5 and 7. It might be cruel. Youre bringing up your kids with the same values of not everyone is a winner. Ive already thrown away my sons participation trophy. It went right in the garbage. Im sorry, i did. I went to my daughters school, we had parentteacher conference, what is your core message to yarley. You are not special. I mean it in the context that i just deliver today you. I dont jump a joy when they give me a piece of paper that has three lines of it. I try not to tell them that they are not the greatest things, i love them to death, i hug them and kiss them all day long and i dont tell them how much i how extraordinary they are. Should it come along . Right. Should we jump forward to law career. You became a lawyer in chicago and new york and after, what was it ten years or something in law . Nine years. You write the fabulous journal entries which is full of angst that im more exciting than this and i need more exciting. Why was law not enough . You can read them. Its a little Bridget Jones dairy. But like she did, but, you know, i had been practicing law for over nine years and up state we never came from circles of power, it meant a lot to be a lawyer. I have arrived and now people are going to take me seriously and i like this sort of, you know, im fierce and im tough and serious, megyn kelly esquire, yeah. And so i was really reluctant to walk away from it because it meant something to me, to my selfimage, but i really did ran first head first of brick wall of unhappiness and you get to a point where you cant deny it anymore. You cant deny up happiness. Malaise and mediocraty. How did you get into journalist . I had always been interested in journalism. I got rejected which i love to remind them now. They dont care. [laughter] it means something to me. [laughter] yeah. And so i when i decide today leave law, okay, so this is something i always wanted to the but maybe i can do it now but, you know, its not that easy to jump into it career as a broadcast journalist and so i really was determined but without the immediate plan and then like in retrospe i feel like my father may have had a hand in it because my dad and guitar playing is a theme of the book. Absolutely. We use today spend, we never took a fancy family vacation. He played the guitar around the campfire and we would sing and dance, that kind of thing. I tried to learn guitar. I was taking guitar lessons once a week and low and behold and woman was journalist and she made a class because the Space Shuttle had blown up. Meredith, where were you. Well, im in news. Youre in news. Honestly, i believe in stuff like this. I just feel like theres a reason i was in that guitar class and theres a reason why i connected with this woman and this beautiful lovely woman who sometimes competitive and they dont always extend the hand of generosity and friendship to help another woman in Competitive Industry in particular, this can happen to guys too. She was just the opposite of that and had endless generosity for me and helped me make a tape and within six months i had my first tv job part time and within 12 months of that fox news hired me. Whats the rewarding aspect of being the news anchor, most challenging aspect . Rewarding aspect, i would definite i will say the most rewarding aspect is the responsibility that, you know, theyve given me and ive earned. Its not so much speaking truth to power. Its being able to hold people in power accountable. Thats the most rewarding aspect of it, that you can ask the hard questions and they kind of have to deal with you, you know. Certainly in the position im in now. They kind of have to. Take donald trump, he avoided me for most of the year, he wouldnt come on the kelly file that doesnt mean i didnt have a chance to hold him accountable. I did. And hillary clinton, she never came on the kelly file, not once, which i would argue did not serve her well. [laughter] [applause] theres my Makeup Artist clap ig. Shes on my side. Anyway, so thats the best part, the worst part, you know, i would definite i will say the worth part has been security threats that ive had to face. I get lots of it and i hate it. You went from somebody that reports on the news to becoming the focus of the news. Right. It happened after you asked the first question in the Republican Debate when you asked donald trump about how he treated women in the past. Lets back up. What happened before you asked that question because its an extraordinary day that you had leading into that . Thats one of the things i review in the book. Trump and i had always had a Good Relationship prior to that debate. We werent friends but we were friendly and then i did a segment before the debate on the kelly file from the divorce of ivana trump. It wasnt my story, it was a story that the daily beast had broken 30 years ago in which ivana in sworn deposition testimony testified that he raped her. He was brutal according to her testimony, extremely nasty and very detailed. The deadly beast brought the story back up because trump said mexicans are sending rapists, spea