Megyn Kelly's Drastic Hair Transformation Through The Years

If a woman changes her hair, it means she's about to change her life. This sentiment could not be more true for TV personality, journalist, and podcaster Megyn Kelly. She has evolved and taken on new projects many times throughout her life, and with each new chapter, Kelly has changed up her hair. A new chop for Kelly is a signal that something new is right around the corner. 

Kelly first worked as an attorney but transitioned into journalism. In 2003, she got her first job at WJLA-TV, an affiliate of ABC News. While there, she covered the 2004 presidential elections, getting the attention of Fox News. Then in 2004, she landed her first spot on the conservative news network. Kelly became so successful on Fox News that she was one of the feature faces of the network. During her tenure there, she climbed the ranks from a brand new reporter to a global superstar. Clearly, Kelly has had an incredible transformation.

Kelly eventually left Fox to join NBC, and then left there to start her popular podcast, "The Megyn Kelly Show." This was not without controversy or detractors, as there are several celebrities who can't stand Megyn Kelly. Nonetheless, Kelly remains ambitious and outspoken, all the while showing off her fabulous hair that's never quite the same from one year to the next. From a big chop to long hair extensions, we never know what to expect.

Megyn Kelly is totally unrecognizable in throwback pics from her high school years. The former Fox News host shared a nostalgic snap on Facebook showing her in her high school graduation cap and gown. In the photo from 1988, we got a whole new perspective on her hair. In her younger days, she had thick curly hair that she wore past her shoulders. On top of that, she rocked big, fluffy bangs. Who knew? Her natural hair color is a darker shade than the one Kelly would go on to adopt in adulthood, and it was much bouncier compared to her later hairstyles.

Following her graduation from Bethlehem Central High School in Delmar, New York, Kelly went on to attend Syracuse University, where she studied political science and later would attend the Albany Law School. While all of this education would pave the way for Kelly's success, it was her wild hair that people noticed in her graduation pic. "Hey [y'all] don't be trashin' the 80's hair it was the best!!" a fan commented on Facebook. "'80s hairstyles were gorgeous!!" another person wrote. No matter how much people loved it, Kelly would change up her hair in the years to come and never go back to her high school style. 

Megyn Kelly's first ever news appearance on Fox occurred on September 9, 2004, when she did an on-air toss back to Shepard Smith. To celebrate her 15th anniversary on Fox News, Kelly, as an established fixture of the network, shared that first clip and had a laugh. 

In 2004, Kelly had bright blond hair cut at her shoulders. She wore it straight and uncurled, done in a hasty side part. In fact, her hair looks a little stringy in this early clip. Kelly of 15 years later cracked up at how nervous she looked all those years ago and made a comment at her own unpolished appearance as a newbie. "And by the way, where was hair and makeup?" Kelly asked of the team that should have been supporting her earlier self. It's a fair question, since Kelly didn't look nearly as polished as she would later on.

Kelly was hired by Roger Ailes, the infamous figure of Fox News who was accused of sexual assault and sexual misconduct by Kelly and other employees of Fox News. While the new job would officially launch her career, it would also come with hazards that would plague her for years to come. 

In 2008, Megyn Kelly attended an event to honor Brit Hume, an American journalist and political commentator. The event marked her fourth year at Fox News, where she was clearly gaining traction and feeling more stable there. It was Hume and his wife Kim who initially pushed for Fox News to hire Kelly. "Here is this woman who was strikingly attractive but has tremendous air presence and a very strong voice," Hume said, recalling Kelly's audition tape (via HuffPost). It was Brit and Kim who helped Kelly grow her confidence on air, and clearly, they were onto something because Kelly's hire was a huge success for herself as well as the network. 

Kelly's attendance at the 2008 celebration revealed the next chapter in her hair transformation. Her hair was morphing into a style and color that we would see on her for years to come. She wore her hair a little bit longer and more styled and curled than when she first began at Fox, and it was that bright platinum blond that seemed expected of women at Fox News.

Early on, rumors claimed that Brit Hume and Kelly had an affair, and the Daily Mail shared Kelly's reaction to that falsehood: "Nobody knows me, They'll see that I'm thirty years younger and blond and they'll just assume that's the whole story." Kelly's blond hair seemed to contribute to these nasty stories.

Megyn Kelly was married to a physician, Dr. Daniel Kendall, from 2001 to 2006. Later, she met her second husband, writer and historian Douglas Brunt. The two married in March 2008. Kelly's relationship with her husband expanded as they became parents to two sons, Yates and Thatcher, and a daughter, Yardley. Kelly has been very frank about how she and Brunt started their family. "I conceived ... all three of my children via IVF," she said on "The Megyn Kelly Podcast" in February 2024. "I am very pro IVF." 

In 2009, when Kelly was pregnant with their first child, Yates, she attended a fundraiser for BGC, a global brokerage that held a huge charity day every year on September 11, to honor those who died on the September 11 attacks. To amp up attention, BGC brought in celebrities to answer donor calls, and Kelly was one such figure. While at the event, Kelly was heavily pregnant and rested a hand on her stomach. She was photographed exhibiting a more relaxed version of her typical Fox News hairstyle. She had it swept in a side part, and while it was still platinum blond, her style seemed more relaxed than her on-air looks.

2011 was a big year for hair in Megyn Kelly's life. For one, she got a chop, going for a chin-length bob that she wore curled in face-framing layers, which was a great example of one of many alluring layered bob cuts that bring the chic. If anything, Kelly is a great model for what short cuts can do for a gal, bringing style and pizzazz to a look.

At this point in time, Kelly's career was well established. She and her husband, Douglas Brunt, had recently become parents, so her new cut also aligned with their chronology of starting a family. Short hair has the tendency to be easier to manage, so Kelly's decision to go for a drastic chop could very well have been practical.

It was also the year that Kelly interviewed Donald Trump, who was then hopeful about running for president. During their conversation, Kelly literally touched Trump's hair to see if he had a receding hairline in response to rumors that Trump wore his hair in combover to hide a receding hairline. It turns out, he didn't have thinning hair, at least at that time, which Kelly proved.

Not long after stepping out with a curled bob, Megyn Kelly changed up her hair yet again. After her short cut in 2011, the anchor grew out her hair. By 2013, she was sporting a longer, blond look. This coincided with the start of her very own show, "The Kelly File," where Kelly gave her own take on news of the day, and conducted interviews. It was a chapter of non-stop wins in Kelly's career. She was the only woman in media to be recognized on Time magazine's 100-most-influential-people list of 2014. She was also listed amongst The Hollywood Reporter's 2014 most powerful people in New York media. 

Obviously, Kelly's looks were not the primary reason for her success. She's smart and aggressive, asking pointed questions in her interviews. But her looks — including her fabulous hair — played a notable part in her magnetic power. TV presenter and former U.S. Representative Trey Gowdy summed up Kelly's success, per Politico. "She's a very good questioner, and you can tell she's an attorney," Gowdy said. "I think you always bolster your credibility when you show objectivity and when you are an equal opportunity questioner. ... No one is your client, you're not protecting anyone. Obviously, when you're attractive, you can get away with things that ugly people like me can't get away with." It certainly didn't hurt that Kelly was so beautiful, and her hair was a part of this. 

Just when the world was getting used to Megyn Kelly's shorter hair, she changed things up all over again. In 2015, Kelly stepped out with surprisingly long hair. Kelly's always got a lot going on — the TV personality is never one to sit back and take it easy, and her hair change was just a small detail in the action-packed year for her. During the Republican Party primaries in 2015, Kelly spoke with Donald Trump again — this time during a debate, and this time, things went poorly.

During the debate, Kelly took aim at Trump. "You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals," she said to him. After the debate, Trump went after her. "Wow, [Megyn Kelly] really bombed tonight," he tweeted in August 2015. "People are going wild on twitter! Funny to watch." Shortly after, he made a very confusing statement about Kelly to CNN: "There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever."

In the midst of this strange, contentious period in her career, Kelly started wearing her hair differently. It was a much more feminine style than she had previously worn. She wore her newly long hair parted down the middle with considerable volume at the crown. Perhaps it was a deflection from the Trump debacle, but whatever the case, it was a totally new look for Kelly. 

The year 2016 was pivotal for Megyn Kelly in terms of not only her career and fame but also her hair. The journalist, who sported long hair during the 2015 GOP presidential debate that ignited her feud with Donald Trump, debuted a dramatic short haircut while moderating another Republican debate in January 2016. Kelly's look later made an appearance in People, where she explained why she got what she called "the big chop." "We change when we get in a different phase. I think I was just in a stronger mood," she said. "I think hair is sort of emotional for all women."

Kelly's comments sparked speculation that her decision was related to Trump, who by then had been lambasting her for months for grilling him during that first debate, including for his numerous misogynistic remarks about the appearances of women he didn't like. But she later clarified that Trump wasn't really the cause of her transformation. While speaking to Entertainment Tonight about the scrutiny her cropped hair had garnered, she said, "It was so funny. I was doing the profile for Vanity Fair at the time, and it was wrapped, and we had to have a follow-up interview about the hair! [The reporter] called me back and said, 'I need to know why you cut your hair!' and I said, 'Because it was long and I wanted it short.'"

However, she suggested to People that her short hair, which she wore slicked back, was her way of showing she was ready to face any attacks head-on — even if they were from a presidential candidate. "There's something about putting your whole face out there that is just empowering: Here I am, have at it," said Kelly.

if there's one thing we've noticed about Megan Kelly, it's that she loves to change up her hair. She's never one to sit tight with a single hairstyle and stick with it for years. In 2017, Kelly attended the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in what proved to be another surprising hairdo. It was long again, which was surprising after her drastic chop in 2016. Kelly wore it shoulder length in golden curls, and she was veering towards a feminine style after her more masculine cut the year prior. 

But things were also changing for Kelly that year. In 2017, she left Fox News – even though Fox News offered her more money, highlighting the lavish life that Kelly lives. She then joined forces with NBC. "Everyone else came to her with an idea of what they wanted," an insider told Vanity Fair of Kelly. "NBC really wanted to hear what she wanted to do, and then they delivered it."

Kelly isn't one to hold back when she's ready for a change. She showed this again at the 2017 Met Gala, when she arrived with her husband, Douglas Brunt. Kelly had a long, blond ponytail, shamelessly revealing her love of hair extensions because there's no way humanly possible for her hair to grow that quickly. Maybe she didn't like that shocking chop as much as she thought she would. 

After years of watching Megyn Kelly, it's almost possible to predict a career change just from looking at the changing length of her hair. In 2019, she chopped off her hair again in a style that looked a lot like her hairdo from 2016 after her big fiasco with Donald Trump. The 2019 cut was another drastic moment for Kelly, who looked quite different from the shoulder length hair she had been rocking the year before. At the time, Kelly was grappling with another, unexpected career change. Just as quickly as she joined NBC, Kelly left the network after making controversial comments about blackface. 

While she was deciding what her next steps might be, Kelly went for simple, unfussy, close-cropped hair. "I got it chopped!" Kelly said while walking in Manhattan (via E! News). "You know, it's like coming on the new year. New beginnings." Thanks to her love of hair extensions, people were obviously unclear about how long her real hair was, because someone asked her if she had donated her locks. "I didn't have enough to donate, no," Kelly clarified. "Please! I couldn't spare it. I had about one inch to go." Kelly called it a "fresh start" and the shorn hair was like the blank canvas of her career at that moment, as she found her footing.

Just when we thought we'd seen the range of Megyn Kelly's hairstyles, she pulled out something different. And in true Megyn Kelly style, the journalist changed hair coincided with a career shift. Kelly created her podcast, "The Megyn Kelly Show," in 2020, which has gone on to flourish. While the podcast exhibits Kelly's adaptability in the world of changing media landscapes, it also shows Kelly's changing aesthetics.

Kelly wears her hair longer — in fact, it's the longest we've seen on her since high school. It's also a more muted blond. Perhaps the new sense of autonomy from starting her podcast emboldened Kelly to try something new with her hair. She's not beholden to Fox News, or any other network, and their expectations around her hair or anything else. But Kelly's evolving career has never been free of critics, and her new podcast hair has garnered its own group of naysayers. "Megyn Kelly looks terrible. Her hair is scraggly. Her face looks drawn and thin," someone tweeted on X of her new look. Others called out Kelly for roasting other women for their looks. "Megyn Kelly said that Kamala Harris' airbrushed photo on the cover of Vogue is 'Bad for little girls,' while using a camera filter and wearing fake hair extensions," another tweeted. "What a f***ing hypocrite."

Kelly is sure to ignore the noise and do what she wants — both with her career and her hair.