NEWS'Tacky' Megyn Kelly Slammed by Critics After Calling Mariska Hargitay's Daughter's Emmys Dress 'Very Inappropriate for a 15-Year-Old'
Megyn Kelly felt the teen's dress was too revealing.
Sept. 18 2026, Updated 1:15 p.m. ET
Megyn Kelly was slammed after shaming the red carpet dress worn by Mariska Hargitay’s 15-year-old daughter, Amaya Hermann, at the 2026 Emmy Awards.
During the Wednesday, September 16, episode of “The Megyn Kelly Show,” the podcaster seized on the mother-daughter duo’s custom matching red Monse gowns intentionally designed as a tribute to Hargitay’s late mother, Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield.
'Very Inappropriate'
Megyn Kelly said she would make her daughter change if she wore the dress Amaya Hermann had on.
"She shows up with her 15-year-old daughter at her side. Nothing wrong with that," Kelly said. "I'm sorry, would you please look at how her 15-year-old child was dressed?"
Kelly called the teenager’s plunging neckline "very inappropriate for a 15-year-old girl" and said that if her own daughter wore it, she would tell her to "get your a-- back upstairs right now.”
The former Fox News host added, "the mother's chest is more covered up than the daughter's."
Although some social media users agreed with Kelly’s opinion, the talk show host set off a social media scorn-fest with her comments.
Megyn Kelly Critics Slammed Her Comments
Some critics called out Megyn Kelly for past comments she made about Jeffrey Epstein sexually abusing 15-year-old girls.
“Inappropriate dress for a young girl and tacky behavior from Megyn,” said one X critic.
Critics quickly shifted the focus back on Kelly by resurfacing controversial statements she made the previous year regarding dead child abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
They noted a stark contradiction and hypocrisy, stating that Kelly previously debated whether being attracted to 15-year-old girls made Epstein a p--------, yet she was now expressing moral outrage over a girl the same age wearing a revealing dress.
"I realize this is disgusting. I'm definitely not trying to make an excuse for this," Kelly said in November. "I'm just giving you facts that he wasn't into, like, 8-year-olds."
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Megyn Kelly was called 'tacky' for her remarks.
One person said of the hypocrisy, “I believe she also said that these 40 and 50-year-old men weren’t p--------- cause a lot of the girls were 15, not 8…"
“Honestly, why should we give a s--- what Megyn Kelly has to say?! She is so irrelevant and such a waste of oxygen. Just recently wasn’t she talking about underage CHILDREN as being responsible for being r-----?? STFU, Megyn!” blasted another.
Megyn Kelly Shamed Other Red Carpet Outfits
The podcaster has criticized several other women's outfits.
Kelly has a history of targeting women's fashion and bodies.
In addition to criticizing Hargitay's daughter, Kelly went on a bizarre rant about actress Shailene Woodley's Balenciaga Emmys ensemble. She compared Woodley's top to a "wrestling singlet" and explicitly critiqued her body, saying, "unless you’ve got, like, an absolutely stunning rack, it’s probably not a great idea to show that much of the b----." She also slammed Woodley's pants, calling them an "ugly... tan burlap sack."
In late 2025, Kelly condemned the sheer, chainmail dress Sydney Sweeney wore to Variety's "Power of Women" event, calling it "completely see-through" and accusing her of "oversharing" like Kim Kardashian.
