SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly told the crowd at AmericaFest on Friday that her long-running friendship with The Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro reached a breaking point after his recent public attacks.

Shapiro criticized fellow media figures — including Kelly — during his AmericaFest speech Thursday. Shapiro said Kelly downplayed the conduct of Candace Owens. Owens pushed conspiracy theories about the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. Kelly said Shapiro crossed a line by calling her out while, in the same breath, also saying she’s a friend.

“I object to the whole thing. Ben and I, he had the nerve to call me a friend right before he called me a despicable coward for not calling out the people he wants called out. So he both wants to parent me and be my child,” Kelly said. “He wants to tell me what I have to do and who I have to say what to. And then when I don’t, he and some of his friends want to act like utter victims because I won’t do what they say. They need me. I have to be their daddy and step in to protect them.”

Kelly said she no longer considers Shapiro a friend, adding that after years of supporting his career, he had no standing to dictate her speech or publicly attack her.

“And I am not their daddy. And I resent that he thinks he’s in a position to decide who must say what to whom and when. So I don’t think we are friends anymore. I’ve been a very good friend to Ben. Nobody knew who the heck Ben Shapiro was when I started putting him on my shows on the Fox News channel. And I helped make him a star. And I’ve been very, very good to Ben over the years. And he’s been good to me too. He just recently came on my tour, as did you, and I gave him the most kind introduction I could possibly give him because I know that he’s losing subscribers. A lot. And so I tried to do something nice for him by giving him a long 10-minute intro and personally vouching for him.”

Kelly mocked Shapiro’s claim to authority within the conservative movement.

“I found it kind of funny that Ben thinks he has the power to decide who gets excommunicated from the conservative movement, which shows a willful blindness about his position in it. It reminded me a little of when the girl who was the head of our middle school chorus told me she was going to take all my friends away from me. Chorus? A head cheerleader, maybe. So I resent the whole thing.”

Kelly said Erika Kirk contacted her weeks earlier to ask her to take part in and help facilitate a potential meeting with Owens, a discussion the parties initially weighed making public. Kelly said she agreed to help after Owens signed off on her involvement.

“And the two of them took it from there, trying to negotiate the specifics of what they’d both be comfortable with, where, when, etc. And eventually it changed after they hit some roadblocks,” Kelly said.

Kelly said Kirk and Owens handled the negotiations themselves, working through details about format, timing, and location before talks stalled, adding that she stayed publicly silent on their dispute while privately trying to bring them together. She rejected Owens’ claims tying Turning Point USA to the assassination and also said it was not her role to publicly condemn Owens.

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