Sunny Hostin Says Megyn Kelly Became a 'Different Person' While Filming Her Fox News Show: 'Very Aggressive'

Sunny Hostin revealed what it was like to work as a guest at Fox News — specifically appearing on The O'Reilly Factor, which ran from 1996 to 2017, where she spoke about legal topics to Bill O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly, the latter of whom the TV host said was hard to get along with.

The topics served as "the three things that we're going to talk about as a network on every single show," but as part of her job, The View co-host, 55, had to "push back" during her "Is it Legal" segments on O'Reilly's program, which led to some tensions with Kelly, 53. (O'Reill left the network in 2017.)

"It was Megyn Kelly on one side and I was on the other. What I did learn was how to lean in to being on television, because, I will tell you, she was fine and it was great and we would talk, and that red light came on and she became a completely different person, a very telegenic person, very aggressive, assertive, and it caught me off guard only one time. I only need to experience that once," Hostin explained on The View's "Behind the Table" podcast, which was. released on Tuesday, February 20. "She took up all the air time, she took up all the air in the room, and I realized what my task was because I had the minority voice, of course, for Fox News viewers, that I had a mission, I wanted them to see the other side."

Hostin then noted she wasn't a huge fan of working at the network.

"People are always shocked that I worked at Fox, because they consider me to be extremely liberal and to the left. I'm actually not very far to the left, I'm a little more centrist. But, Fox was unlike any place I'd ever worked before, and unlike any place I've worked since. That's because it felt very cult-like," Hostin told View producer Brian Teta. "There was almost a mandate that would come from the top about what topics would be discussed on every show, and there were whiteboards on every floor. The shows were separated often by floors. You could see it as you walked in to where you were sitting. No. 1 was like, 'Obama sucks,' No. 2 was like, 'Obama was not born in this country.'"

"The hair and makeup and clothing, I thought was a little inappropriate," she recalled of the culture. "The shorter the skirt, the more airtime you got."

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This is hardly the first time the two ladies have fought with one another. In 2023, Hostin said, “I think I bested [Kelly] most of the time.”

“Yes, Sunny, that is what led Fox to give you your own show and then elevate you to the primetime where you built the No. 1 show in cable and also became part of the network’s presidential debate team. Oh wait," Kelly, who left Fox News in 2017, said via social media.