Anyone who follows Debra Messing on Twitter knows the “Will & Grace” star is a diehard Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton in the last election and would never have set foot on Megyn Kelly’s previous show on the right-leaning Fox News Network.
Yet she and her fellow co-stars made a Monday appearance on Kelly’s new NBC morning show, “Megyn Kelly Today” (which is technically the third hour of “Today”), where Kelly made a weird comment that raised eyebrows when she asked a “superfan” in the audience: “Is it true that you became a lawyer — and you became gay — because of Will?”
In an Instagram post in which Messing shared a photo of a bowl of cucumbers — with the innocuous caption “Snack time! #presstour — a commenter asked, “But why did you guys do the Megyn Kelly show? That’s a fail!!”
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Messing responded, admitting: “Honestly I didn’t know it was MK until that morning. The itinerary just said ‘Today Show’ appearance.”
Added Messing: “Regret going on. Dismayed by her comments.”
However, those present insist that Kelly’s remark was a joke. “She was obviously making a joke, that was clear to the ‘superfan’ — who was ecstatic, and the audience,” says an insider. “It became even clearer when she spent much of the interview asking the show’s creators how proud they were of the positive social impact of ‘Will & Grace’ and the progress it brought about for gay rights.”
After the appearance, “Will & Grace” star Sean Hayes — who is, in real life, the show’s sole gay cast member — shared a photo on social media, declaring: “Having fun on the premiere episode of @megyntoday.”
Messing appeared to concur, and retweeted Hayes’ tweet:
Kelly kicked off the interview by asking the cast about the groundbreaking sitcom’s impact on gay rights. “The cast and creators of ‘Will & Grace’ are here. We talked about this show’s impact. And culturally, it had a huge impact. Vice-President Joe Biden said at the time, no other show had as much effect, as calling people’s attention to gay rights. What does it feel to hear that?” she asked.
“Shocking. He read it as I wrote it,” responded series co-creator David Kohan. “It was surprising and incredibly gratifying. We never set out — there was nothing — we were not an ideological thing. We were not set out to posit ideas into the zeitgeist. We were trying to do a show with four characters and trying to be funny. It was very satisfying.”
ET Canada has reached out to Messing’s rep for comment, but have not received a response.
You can watch the the cast’s appearance below. In the meantime, don’t miss the season premiere of “Will & Grace”, airing Thursday, Sept. 28 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Global.
