Reportedly Al Roker will be apart of the team that replaces Megyn Kelly in the 9:00 hour of the “Today” show. This is after Kelly was fired for making comments about people wearing blackface on Halloween.
The news of Roker replacing the ousted host comes one year after his time slot was removed and given to Kelly.
And now just like the original format, Other NBC personalities will join Roker in that hour of the show, unless something changes. Tamron Hall also co-hosted that slot with the veteran weather forecaster and left the network after she was replaced.
“Today we’re starting a new chapter in our show” said host Hoda Kotb on Monday morning.
It was just three days ago that Kelly said she saw nothing wrong with people wearing blackface for Halloween and after getting blasted by viewers, NBC staff and many others, she offered an apology.
According to the 47-year-old lawyer, she was unaware of the history surrounding blackface and had no idea how it was perceived by Black people.
And before Kelly apologized, Roker addressed what she did and didn’t let her off the hook.
“While she apologized to the staff, she owes a bigger apology to folks of color around the country,” he explained. “Because this is a history going back to the 1830s, minstrel shows to demean and denigrate a race wasn’t right … I’m old enough to have lived through ‘Amos ‘n’ Andy’ where you had white people in blackface playing two Black characters, magnifying the worst stereotypes about Black people.
Reportedly, Kelly is negotiating a $50 million settlement with NBC.
