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Megyn Kelly Shades NBC After Tina Fey Pulls ’30 Rock’ Blackface Episodes
Megyn Kelly threw shade at NBC after Tina Fey pulled episodes of 30 Rock containing blackface from circulation.
“Wait — what network aired those episodes again?” Kelly, 49, tweeted on Tuesday, June 23, causing her followers to point out the network’s “hypocrisy” on the matter.
Wait – what network aired those episodes again? https://t.co/PaUoxkVC6S
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 23, 2020
“The insane hypocrisy is overwhelming. It’s everywhere, all at once,” one person wrote in response, while another added, “HNBC, Hypocrite National Broadcast Co.”
Kelly worked on Megyn Kelly Today for little over a year until her show was canceled in October 2018 following comments about “inappropriate and offensive costumes.”
“But what is racist?” Kelly asked the audience. “Because truly, you do get in trouble if you are a White person who puts on blackface at Halloween or a Black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid, that was okay as long as you were dressing up as a character.”
She later apologized for her remarks, both on-air and in an email to colleagues.
“I realize now that such behavior is indeed wrong, and I am sorry,” she wrote in the email, obtained by Us Weekly at the time. “The history of blackface in our culture is abhorrent; the wounds too deep. I’ve never been a [politically correct] kind of person — but I understand that we do need to be more sensitive in this day and age. Particularly on race and ethnicity issues which, far from being healed, have been exacerbated in our politics over the past year.”
On Monday, it was reported that all episodes of the sitcom containing blackface had been pulled from streaming, on-demand and TV reruns at the request of show creator Fey.
“As we strive to do the work and do better in regards to race in America, we believe that these episodes featuring actors in race-changing makeup are best taken out of circulation,” Fey wrote in a letter to the streaming platforms.
“I understand now that ‘intent’ is not a free pass for white people to use these images. I apologize for pain they have caused.” She added, “Going forward, no comedy-loving kid needs to stumble on these tropes and be stung by their ugliness. I thank NBCUniversal for honoring this request.”
Jane Krakowski and guest star Jon Hamm‘s characters wore blackface on the series, while another episode made reference to the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama faked his birth certificate.
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