Introduction
Megyn Kelly is an American broadcaster and lawyer who spent thirteen years at Fox News, anchored “Megyn Kelly Today” at NBC News, and now hosts “The Megyn Kelly Show,” a daily podcast and SiriusXM channel carried by an account with roughly 440,000 followers on X. On 1 October 2026 her show’s account published a clip of her assessment of the Cornell Chi Phi case: “What I see is a couple of young men who behaved in a way that I would be incredibly ashamed of my own sons,” she said — “But inappropriate threesomes where you’re openly celebrating it with your fraternity brothers does not make you a rapist.”
Background Information
Kelly practised law before moving to television, joining Fox News in 2004 and hosting “The Kelly File” before leaving for NBC News in 2017. Her NBC run ended in 2018 after she questioned on air whether blackface was racist as part of a Halloween costume, remarks for which she apologised and then left the network. She relaunched as an independent podcast host, and her show now mixes politics, crime coverage and commentary on sexual-assault cases — the Cornell matter among them, covered extensively on her site under her own byline segments. She was one of several commentators to post about the case; Sam Tripoli, Michael Tracey and Emily Wilson also have pages documenting their posts about the accuser.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Allegations. The Cornell University matter described in this section is a civil lawsuit: no one has been charged with a crime, the claims in it are unadjudicated, and the reopening of the investigation is not a finding of guilt. Kelly’s quoted remarks are published statements in her own words, which she has not retracted.
The case concerns a former Cornell student who alleges she was drugged and gang raped by seven Chi Phi fraternity members at a fraternity house in 2024; she filed suit against the university and the men in September 2026. Days later the Tompkins County district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, reopened the case to seek a grand jury review, saying his office had been “asked by the community to revisit the decision whether to pursue criminal charges against the seven fraternity members”; he had filed no charges in 2024 because, he said, the woman had not given campus police the same key allegations she later made in the lawsuit. The New York attorney general also opened a review of Cornell’s response, and the woman’s contemporaneous statement to police — released during the renewed scrutiny — records the night “felt like coercion.”
Kelly’s segment, promoted by her site as an analysis of “the questionable circumstances behind the alleged Cornell ‘gang rape’” and of “whether Doe’s actions were consensual,” disputes the framing the accuser’s side has used: in the clip, she characterises the events as a “threesome” — a description at odds with a complaint that names seven men — and draws the line at criminal liability rather than at the men’s conduct, which she calls shameful. Her technically correct point, that a civil complaint is not a conviction and that prosecutors must prove the elements of a crime, sits alongside a case in which the district attorney has since told a court-adjacent process that he wants a grand jury to weigh the same allegations.
The clip drew roughly 154 likes and 23,000 views on the show’s account.
Public Reaction and Consequences
No news outlet has reported on the clip, and X has taken no visible action against either her personal or show account, both of which remained live and postable when the post was captured.
Kelly’s recent record is one of recurring backlash without cost. In July 2026 she devoted more than twelve minutes of her podcast to attacking Michelle Obama, coverage of which noted that her standing with audiences had softened over the previous year. In August 2026 she called basketball coaches “absolute effing cowards” during a five-minute on-air attack on Caitlin Clark for declining to comment on a teammate’s remarks, which Mediaite covered. In September 2026 she defended the actor Sydney Sweeney’s sports-betting advertisement against criticism from female athletes, and a segment on Shailene Woodley’s Emmy outfit drew a public reply from the actor’s stylist.
Current Status
The clip remains live and unedited, and Kelly has neither walked back the “threesome” characterisation nor apologised for it; her show continued posting through 1 October 2026. The underlying Cornell allegations remain unadjudicated, the accuser is still identified only as Jane Doe, and the grand jury review sought by the district attorney is pending.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Nothing documented has followed the segment. Kelly has not been suspended, demonetised or dropped by a distributor, no outlet has covered the clip, and her daily show, podcast feed and SiriusXM channel continue to carry the same programming. The one documented occasion on which her commentary cost her a job remains the 2018 blackface remarks, which ended her NBC programme — a decade of subsequent controversies, and this segment, have cost her nothing measurable since.
Sources
- X, “The Megyn Kelly Show (@MegynKellyShow)” (post, 1 October 2026), source
- Megyn Kelly, “District Attorney reopens investigation into alleged 2024 gang rape at Cornell University,” 30 September 2026, source
- CNN, “New York attorney general to review Cornell’s response to rape allegations as local DA reopens investigation,” 29 September 2026, source
- The Guardian, “Texts about alleged Cornell gang-rape released after investigation reopened,” 29 September 2026, source
- New York Post, “Grim new details revealed in Cornell student’s account of alleged gang rape,” 30 September 2026, source
- Wikipedia, “Megyn Kelly,” source
- Atlanta Black Star, “‘You’re Not That Great’: Megyn Kelly Unloads in a Bitter, 12-Minute Profanity-Laced Rant Against Michelle Obama,” 21 July 2026, source
- Mediaite, “‘Cowardly!’ Megyn Kelly Slams Caitlin Clark for Refusing to Comment on Trans Athletes,” 3 August 2026, source
- Reality Tea, “Megyn Kelly Calls Female Athletes ‘P****’ While Defending Sydney Sweeney’s Nude Ad,” 24 September 2026, source
- Yahoo Entertainment, “Star’s Stylist Fires Back After Megyn Kelly Meltdown Over Outfit,” 17 September 2026, source