5 Things Revealed in Megyn Kelly’s Memoir, ‘Settle for More’

Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly reveals in her upcoming memoir, Settle for More, that Gretchen Carlson was not alone in her sexual harassment claims against Roger Ailes. Kelly details in her new book that the Fox News Channel CEO and chairman offered her “professional advancement in exchange for sexual favors” and tried to kiss her multiple times. 

But in the book, due out Tuesday but obtained early by The New York Times, Kelly also reveals much more about her career and her scary, “bizarre” run-ins with Donald Trump, the new president-elect. 

Below are a few takeaways from Kelly’s memoir. 

1. Trump threatened her — multiple times. After a segment about him on her Fox News show, The Kelly File, Trump said he wouldn’t show up for his next scheduled appearance on her show unless she personally called to apologize. “I almost unleashed my beautiful Twitter account against you,” she says he told her, “and I still may.”

Trump again came after her when he heard that ahead of the first debate Kelly had planned to start things off with a “very pointed question directed at him.” Kelly writes in her memoir that she considered that to be “bizarre behavior, especially for a man who wanted the nuclear codes.”

2. Kelly suspects foul play (poison?) ahead of her moderating that debate. She writes that a driver who took her to the debate venue insisted (repeatedly) on getting her coffee, which she reluctantly drank. Immediately afterward, she says, she was ill, vomiting so much that she wasn’t sure she could go on air. She never points the finger at anyone or claims anyone poisoned her, but Kelly does say the incident scared her enough that she told a lawyer. 

3. Kelly also experienced sexual harassment at the hands of Ailes. Kelly says that the former Fox News chief “made sexual comments to me, offers of professional advancement in exchange for sexual favors.” She says that he tried to grab her and kiss her on the lips, and when she tried to get away, he asked, threateningly, “When is your contract up?” 

Kelly says she talked to a lawyer, “but I knew the reality of the situation,” she writes. “If I caused a stink, my career would likely be over.” Kelly also says that when she refused to publicly support him in the wake of Carlson’s allegations, Ailes “engineered hit pieces about me online.” 

4. She received death threats after the first presidential debate. Kelly writes that after the event, when Trump mentioned that she had “blood coming out of her … whatever,” “it was like he flipped a switch, instantly causing a flood of intense nastiness.” She received crude voice mails, death threats over the phone and she says she had to take an armed guard to Disney World with her family.

5. Before all this, Trump tried to buy her good opinion. Kelly writes that before Trump seemingly turned on her, he tried to “shape coverage” of him by trying to buy Kelly’s friendship. He tried to pay for Kelly’s weekend at the Trump SoHo hotel. Kelly calls it “one of the untold stories of the 2016 campaign,” that Trump tried to get on the good side of several reporters. “I was not the only journalist to whom Trump offered gifts clearly meant to shape coverage. Many reporters have told me that Trump worked hard to offer them something fabulous — from hotel rooms to rides on his 757.”

According to the New York Times review, though it has plenty of interesting stories of high-profile media figures, the memoir is more self-help book than Hollywood tell-all. “Her message is that with hard work, and an attentiveness to our true needs, we can achieve” her life, reads the review. 

Kelly spoke out about some of the conclusions reached when she took to social media Thursday night. 

For the record, my book “Settle for More” does not suggest Trump had any debate Qs in advance, nor do I believe that he did.

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) November 11, 2016

Also for the record, I believe the reason I got sick the day of the first debate was I contracted a stomach virus, just as Rand Paul did.

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) November 11, 2016

Nov. 11, 7:10 a.m.: This story has been updated with tweets from Kelly.