Megyn Kelly had no problem talking about herself during her first outing as the host of her own hour of ‘Today’ on Monday, but her interactions with some of her guests did not go quite as smoothly.
Her questions to the cast of ‘Will & Grace’ were shockingly banal and had all been asked and answered by the actors countless times before in the 10 months since they reunited to film a short video in support of Hillary Clinton ahead of the election last year.
That segment then ended on an incredibly awkward note after a gay superfan, Russell Turner, briefly joined the group on stage for some hugs with the cast and a minute-log interview with Megyn.
Turner then headed back into the audience as Megyn told him that ‘the gay thing will work out great.’
Social media soon lit up with individuals weighing in on Megyn’s choice of words and decision to refer to Turner’s homosexuality as ‘the gay thing.’
Exciting day: Megyn Kelly had a ‘Will & Grace’ superfan on her show Monday who she brought up after interviewing the cast of the NBC show
Coming out: Russell Turner jokingly told the audience that he became both gay and a lawyer after seeing the show and Eric McCormack in the lead role as Will
What thing: Megyn then said to Turner: ‘I don’t know about the lawyer thing. But I think the “Will & Grace” thing and the gay thing will work out great’
‘Megyn Kelly is every mom trying waaaaay to hard to “relate” to her gay son but instead just makes it waaaaay worse, wrote Will Kellogg.
‘”I think the Will & Grace thing and the gay thing are going to work out great,” Megyn Kelly said to a gay W&G superfan this morning. Really,’ commented Kevin Fallon.
In a subsequent tweet he described the moment by stating: ‘It is what it looks like to watch $15 million set on fire in real time.’
And Josh Scheer wrote: ‘I think the “gay thing” is probably gonna work out a lot better than @MegynKelly’s ” @Today thing.’
The brief interview with Rusell began with Megyn asking if it was true that he became both a lawyer and gay because of the show and its leading man, played by actor Eric McCormack.
Turner jokingly affirmed that was in fact the case, while also kindly providing a bit of color and humor to the polar question by adding that Will had the perfect ‘trifecta’ in that he was gay, a lawyer and had the ‘best apartment in New York City.’
He was then tossed back into the audience after his one question, with Megyn sending him off by stating: ‘I don’t know about the lawyer thing. But I think the “Will & Grace” thing and the gay thing will work out great.’
Awkward moment aside, Turner did leave the show with a pretty amazing gift from Megyn and the NBC team.
‘We, Russell, are giving you not one but two tickets to a live taping of “Will & Grace” in Los Angeles, as well as a behind-the-scenes set tour,’ Megyn told Turner, who is in his second year at Duquesne Law School.
Turner is indeed a superfan of the program, writing about the show extensively on social media.
‘As we all know, this country has been s*** since January…good news though, Will & Grace returns in less than a month,’ he wrote in August.
And in May he expressed how sad he was after learning that Mullally had been in Pittsburgh but he did not see her.
He finally got his chance to meet the woman who plays Karen Walker however on Monday.