INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Megyn Kelly Reportedly ‘Threw An Olympic Fit’ When Katie Couric Was Asked To Go To Winter Games

By Georgia Makitalo
Published on: 06:05 PST, Jan 30, 2018

When NBC made the surprising announcement that Katie Couric would be co-hosting the opening ceremony with Mike Tirico, literally hours after reversing an announcement that Megyn Kelly would be broadcasting at the Olympics, one industry insider called this news a “slap in the face to Megyn.”

Now, according to Page Six, Megyn Kelly is allegedly furious that she is not broadcasting from the Olympics. It should be noted that she specifically had a clause in her $23 million-dollar-a-year contract that she “could not be forced to do special events such as the winter games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.”

Yet, according to sources who spoke to the publication, Kelly “assumed” she would be a shoo-in to replace disgraced Today anchor Matt Lauer in such high-profile events like the Olympics.

“She thought she had it all played out perfectly, by saying ‘no’ before the Matt Lauer scandal. [The network was] stupid enough to put in her contract that she could say ‘yes’ or ‘no.'”

Instead of asking Megyn Kelly if she would want to work the opening ceremony, they contacted former Today anchor Katie Couric. This made the host of the third hour of the Today show complain to her inner circle, with the intention that NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack would react, but allegedly, he never even flinched.

“[Kelly] complained to her staff, she complained to her agent, so that [NBC News chairman Andrew Lack] would hear about the fact that she was unhappy, but he didn’t care.”

While one Page Six source stated that Lack called Kelly “a diva,” and that “she’s not going to be part of the NBC News… inner circle,” an NBC News insider who spoke with them says there is “zero truth” to these statements.

First, they claim that Lack has never used the word “diva” and then pointed out that these are rumors that are all “laughable since [the opening ceremony is] the least desirable gig in broadcasting, given the inevitable brutal reviews.”

As the Inquisitr previously reported, the choice to bring in Katie Couric may be because more of a sentimental reason than a journalistic one.

The editor of the Daily Caller’s Mirror blog, Betsy Rothstein, suggests that NBC wanted to bring in NBC nostalgia after all of the bad publicity surrounding Matt Lauer’s downfall.

“It seems like an attempt to twist the optics and take viewers back to a time when they felt good about the network.”

Now, NBC is focused on Olympic Winter Games XXIII which will be between February 9 and February 25.

According to Fox News, in addition to Couric and Tirico, Dylan Dreyer, Willie Geist, Savannah Guthrie, Lester Holt, Hoda Kotb, Craig Melvin, Natalie Morales, and Al Roker are all going to South Korea to report from the Olympics. Meanwhile, Megyn Kelly will stay put and report from 30 Rock.

According to the NBC insider that Fox News spoke to, NBC expects a complete focus on Olympic coverage during the entire length of the Olympic Games. They expressed curiously on whether Megyn Kelly will be at odds with management should she want to cover anything other than the Olympic Games.

“It will be interesting to see what management does if she wants to cover something other than Olympics. At NBC, the only news during the Olympics is the Olympics.”

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