‘Go tell it to your therapist’: Megyn Kelly not giving Will Smith a pass – sick of celebs using ‘childhood trauma’ card to excuse bad behavior

Popular podcast host Megyn Kelly unloaded on actor Will Smith earlier this week after he sought to blame childhood trauma for his behavior at the Oscars.

“I’m just sick of these Hollywood people thinking we give a damn about their childhood traumas when they behave badly. Just say you’re sorry, and people either will forgive or they won’t. Go tell it to your therapist, go sit on the damn sofa, for the guy who charges $700 an hour, and work it out with him,” she said on Wednesday.

“I don’t give a s–t. You assaulted a guy and humiliated him who was just standing there doing his job for what? For nothing. To boost your own ego. So [I] don’t really care about your self analysis, or how hard it’s been for you to forgive yourself. I just want you to be humble,” she added.

Kelly continued, “What I object to is this Hollywood elitist multimillionaire, like, you can see the light bulb over his head … you’re no better than anybody else. In fact, you appear to be quite worse than a lot of the people who are out there digging ditches every day and driving buses every day. And despite the fact that they’ve had a s–t ton of childhood trauma, don’t go around abusing other people!”

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Her fierce denunciation of Smith came two days after he appeared on comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”

While on the show, he sought to blame childhood trauma for his widely condemned decision to slap fellow actor Chris Rock at this year’s Oscars award ceremony.

“That was a horrific night, as you can imagine. There’s many nuances and complexities to it, but at the end of the day I just, I lost it. I guess what I would say, you just never know what somebody’s going through. In the audience right now, you’re sitting next to strangers and somebody’s mother died last week, somebody’s child is sick, somebody lost their job, somebody just found out their spouse cheated…I was going through something that night,” Smith said.

“It was a lot of things [for me]. It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, you know? And all of that just bubbled up in that moment. … I understand how shocking that was for people. I was gone. That was a rage that had been bottled up for a really long time,” he added.

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Kelly’s anger with Smith likely stems in part from the disparate treatment he’s received. After all, he never faced any charges for hitting Rock.

Indeed, the podcast host recently claimed that Smith would have been treated entirely differently had he been a white man versus a black person.

“If Will Smith were white and had assaulted Chris Rock, a black man at the Oscars, he would never work again a day in his life. He gets a pass because of his skin color. And because he’s a huge star. And Hollywood celebrates that and values that above all else. He’s rich, he’s famous, and he can memorize the lines and say them just the way we like them,” she said late last month.

“So all the stars were aligned for him. They have to act like they’re mad over this one incident because they realize that the general population doesn’t appreciate it, but they’re not really mad. Will Smith is going to get a total pass and all the time remind us about how he’s the real victim,” she added.

She then contrasted Smith’s victimhood with the story of Lt. Jason Redman.

“This is a crazy, incredibly inspirational guy, U.S. Navy Seal, got both of his eyes shot out fighting for us in Afghanistan and Iraq. He posted a sign outside of his door that said, if you’re going to come in this room where I’m recovering with anything other than optimism and an attitude ready for fun, if you want to come in here and feel sorry for me, stay out. I don’t want your pity here,” she said.

“Will Smith could take a lesson. We don’t care about his childhood trauma. Go talk to your therapist. You behave badly. All we want you to hear — to hear you say is, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then you get back to work quietly and humbly,” she added.

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Lara Logan made a similar point back in April. Speaking on Fox Business Network’s “The Evening Edit,” she made the case that Smith’s treatment at the 2022 Oscars — being allowed to stay after slapping Rock, and then receiving loud applause upon accepting an award — would have been entirely different were he just an “average person.”

“If any average person did that, they would be in jail, they’d be locked up, they at least would have been arrested or questioned by the police at this point. But it shows you the double standard that exists. It shows you that when you’re a Hollywood celebrity… you can get away with anything,” she said.

“How often throughout the COVID pandemic did we see that the rules that applied to all of us didn’t apply to the elites, whether the political elites, Hollywood elites. No difference here. I think it is really frustrating for people,” she added.

This exact same sentiment has been echoed by a wide variety of voices, with critics accusing Smith of benefiting from either “celebrity privilege,” “black privilege” or both.

Vivek Saxena

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