Fox's Megyn Kelly Was Bullied as a Kid

Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly has gone into greater detail about the bullying she experienced when she was a child in a new interview with Elle magazine.

Kelly first opened up about the harassment she received at the hands of other middle-school girls in aNewsweek essay in 2012, but she recounted the story in vivid detail for Elle.

Kelly, who was raised in upstate New York, said she was bullied "basically my entire seventh-grade year. It was a year of torture. That's the peak year of wanting to be accepted and feeling very uncomfortable in your own skin, not really under-standing who you are or where you fit in -- if at all. And when the messages keep coming back -- 'you don't fit in,' 'you're not likable,' 'you don't have friends' -- it's hard."

Kelly's tormentors prank-called her, mocked her in public, and threw things at her in class when teachers had their backs turned, Elle reports.

Did this crucial experience help shape Kelly's current views, which seem less partisan than her co-anchors on the network?

While Fox News has a reputation for hosting right-wing and antigay pundits, Kelly's voice is often one of the more tempered on the network. Although her opinions still fall far short of progressive -- remember her definitive declaration that "Santa just is white," last December? -- she has held some anti-LGBT commentators accountable for their hateful rhetoric when they appear on Fox news, and seems to be tepidly in support of marriage equality.

Kelly challenged Tony Perkins, leader of the Family Research Council, an antigay hate group. to provide compelling evidence that marriage equality harmed the nation, saying she was not convinced that same-sex marriage was any different from opposite-sex marriage. As the U.S. Supreme Court considered striking down California's Proposition 8, Kelly refused to buy the arguments from antigay activist and cofounder of the National Organization for Marriage Maggie Gallagher that a public vote on the rights of same-sex couples should settle the question. Kelly pushed back on Gallagher's rhetoric, pointing out that the Supreme Court has stepped in to regulate unjust marriage policies in the past, including striking down laws that forbade interracial marriage. She used a similar argument in favor of the freedom to marry when debating the proposed Chick-fil-A boycott in August 2012 after it was revealed the company donated an estimated $5 million to anti-LGBT groups, and its chief operating officer made clear that he doesn't believe gay and lesbian couples should wed. Kelly has also expressed support of Chaz Bono's transition.