George Clooney recently stuck up for himself against Megyn Kelly, but the former Fox News anchor did not take his criticism lightly.
During Clooney’s appearance alongside Patti LuPone on Variety‘s Broadway Actors on Actors, LuPone noted that Clooney has been labeled “a communist” and “a fascist” for his political activism over the years. Clooney, for his part, made no apologies about speaking “truth to power,” adding that “I didn’t give up my constitutional rights when I became an actor.”
“I don’t care much in terms of what they say,” Clooney said. “You see Megyn Kelly, who’s come out and said I’m not a journalist. I didn’t say I was a journalist.”
LuPone interjected: “Neither is she. ”
He continued, “I’ve at least been to Darfur and Sudan and the Congo and been shot at to try to get stories out. I’m not quite sure what she’s done to be a journalist.”
Clooney is currently starring on Broadway as famed journalist Edward R. Murrow in “Good Night, and Good Luck.” At the end of the play, adapted from the actor-director’s 2005 movie of the same name, there’s a montage that features real-life news clips with Kelly, Elon Musk and more.
“We don’t tell people what to think when we show that montage at the end,” Clooney said. “We only show her words in this play. We don’t tell people what to think. It’s not out of context. We don’t manipulate it. We literally just go, ‘These are your words.’”
Kelly responded to Clooney by devoting the first 11 minutes of April 23’s episode of “The Megyn Kelly Show.” She argued that, despite what Clooney believes, she is a journalist he is not. She also criticized Clooney’s New York Times opinion piece from 2024 in which he called for Joe Biden to step down as the democratic presidential nominee.
“He’s starring in a play about Edward R. Murrow because Clooney fancies himself a journalist, you see, and has lots of thoughts on how journalists need to do journalism,” she said. “He does it mainly by stumbling upon the biggest story of the decade, that a sitting president is mentally infirm and ought to be 25th Amendment’ed right out of office, and then burying it, saying absolutely nothing for weeks on end, and then only after that president humiliates himself on the national stage at a Presidential debate, and then refuses to step down as the entire Democrat Party watches its electoral chances up and down the ticket go swirling down the toilet.”
She continued, “Finally he decides to write an op-ed in The New York Times saying Joe Biden is not up for the job. That’s not journalism, George — it’s cowardice and naked partisanship. You’re not fooling anyone. So now he’s starring in his Broadway show … by the way, what’s the matter, George? Are the Hollywood roles getting a little hard to come by as you age and get decidedly more smug and self congratulatory? I’m just asking!”
Kelly then outlined what she referred to as some of her biggest interviews in her career, from Donald Trump to everyday Americans. She also took aim at LuPone, calling her “Broadway’s biggest and oldest bully.”
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