Tamron Hall is back in business – and doing it on her own terms.
The award-winning broadcast journalist’s eponymous talk show debuted nationwide Monday on ABC.
And she didn’t waste no time discussing the elephant in the room – her messy departure as an anchor on NBC’s “Today” show.
“I go into work one day. I left fired. ‘Demoted’ I guess is what they called it. I called it fired,” Hall said five minutes into her opening after greeting her audience.
“Inside, I was falling apart. I had worked since I was 14,” she recalled about the day she chose to leave NBC News after, it became public that the network was putting Megyn Kelly into her show’s timeslot.
In an interview with USA Today, published Monday, the 48-year-old Lulling, Texas, native said she was “heartbroken” about the exit.
“(Imagine) you’ve been putting in the work, and suddenly your employer says they’re phasing you out,” she continued. “I had some suspicions, because I’m a reporter and I’m pretty intuitive, but no one wants to lose their job. It wasn’t about who I was losing it to – it was like a relationship where you’re putting in 100% and the person who’s putting in less has the nerve to break up with you.”
But she has moved on gracefully.
Live on air, Hall gave “a shoutout” to her former ‘Today” show colleagues Al Roker, Willie Geist, and Savannah Guthrie.
She also congratulated “American Idol” winner turned Grammy Award-winning powerhouse Kelly Clarkson, who also made her maiden voyage into daytime talk on Monday (with her own chatfest, on another network).
“I will not be in a position where you pit me against another woman,” Hall said.
