A former Fox News host whose show, “Outnumbered,” reportedly drew large audiences, Friday revealed to Megyn Kelly she was fired.
Not only was she fired, Melissa Francis remarked on the “Megyn Kelly Show,” she was notified by a teleprompter message. After the teleprompter message briefly appeared, notifying Francis her show had been canceled, all the studio lights and microphones were disabled.
She and her attorney, Kevin Mintzer, announced the previously private details of her disappearance from the airwaves despite hosting a popular show.
Francis claimed she sought to increase her salary during 2020 contract negotiations to receive compensation comparable to her male counterparts at Fox, according to a Mediaite report.
At that time, her show appeared on both Fox News and Fox Business. In addition, she co-hosted one of the most highly rated shows on Fox. So, the report noted, she considered a pay increase a reasonable ask.
She was reportedly shocked when her arguments for better compensation appeared to fall on deaf ears.
The former host expressed surprise that the network’s representative during contract negotiations was an executive who used to run the Fox legal department, the report noted. Francis said she was surprised to see Dianne Brandi because the former host had believed the executive no longer worked for the network.
Brandi took a voluntary leave of absence from running Fox’s legal department in 2017, following fallout from numerous sexual harassment allegations against Fox founder Roger Ailes, according to the Mediaite report.
Francis allegedly provided information demonstrating the network was not paying their female employees adequately. She informed Kelly neither Brandi nor Fox’s Human Resources department addressed the pay gap issue.
Colleagues and other networks tried to make sense of her sudden, unexpected departure from the broadcast schedule. Media analysts suggested in October 2020 she had filed a gender discrimination claim that was being handled through arbitration.
Francis’ lawyer replied to Kelly’s question about the rumored arbitration by saying he could not speak about it.
“Let me just ask you for — just for the record,” Kelly asked. “Did Melissa file an arbitration against Fox?”
“We’re not able to talk about that,” Mintzer replied.
While contract negotiations and a possible arbitration matter were in process, the former host was working from home.
“They built a studio in my home,” Francis explained. “I was doing the noon show and the four o’clock show from home, I was on every night. You know, things — life was continuing as normal.”
Suddenly, out of the blue, her lawyer received a phone call from Fox informing him Francis’ on-air services were no longer required. She claimed her show’s ratings “were through the roof” at the time.
Francis was scheduled to begin broadcasting about 10 minutes after she was informed of the network decision. Thinking Fox probably meant the imminent broadcast would be her last because it takes more than 10 minutes to prepare an anchor to deliver the news.
“You know, I’m gonna just go over and sit in my living room for my second show,” she recalled thinking. “And then if they want me not on tomorrow, whatever it is, that’s fine.”
Francis explained the in-home studio Fox designed for her was operated remotely from their studios.
“So the lights come on, the teleprompter comes on,” Francis said. “I went over, I sat down, I clicked on my mic. I checked in, we talked to the producers, we did the whole thing.”
Francis noted that, as the producer was in her ear counting down to the start of the show, the teleprompter in front of her suddenly changed.
“I’m about to go,” she stated, “and it comes up in the prompter: ‘You’ve been canceled’ and I said, ‘What’s going on?’”
She added all the equipment in her home studio suddenly went dead.
“And I was like, ‘Wow, okay. This is, this is how we’re doing this. Huh? Wow,’”
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