Debra Messing was not happy with her press stop at “Megyn Kelly Today” this week.
The actress and her co-stars Sean Hayes, Megan Mullally and Eric McCormack stopped by Kelly’s new morning show to promote the upcoming “Will & Grace” reboot — but things went south when Kelly made a controversial comment about the show’s impact on gay rights.
During the segment, Kelly surprised a fan from the audience with a cast meet-and-greet and said, “Is it true that you became a lawyer, and you became gay, because of Will? … I don’t know about the lawyer thing, but I think that ‘Will & Grace’ thing and the gay thing is going to work out great.”
“Honestly I didn’t know it was MK until that morning,” Messing said in the comments of her Instagram when a fan asked why the group was on with Kelly. “The itinerary just said Today Show appearance. Regret going on. Dismayed by her comments.”
An NBC insider defended Kelly, saying of the comment, “It was very much tongue-in-cheek, which was abundantly clear to the ‘superfan’ who was thrilled to be a part of the show, and the audience. And it was even clearer when she devoted much of the interview to 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.”
Kelly took over the 9 a.m. hour of NBC’s “Today” show on Monday with her “Megyn Kelly Today.”
A rep for Messing didn’t immediately return a request for comment.