Megyn Kelly picked a weird time to split hairs about Jeffrey Epstein and pedophilia.
This week, the world first saw Epstein’s emails about Donald Trump. They are unflattering, describing Trump spending time with victims and keeping quiet.
To be blunt, it’s clear that much more is poised to come out. Political commentators expect damning photographs of Trump in the mix.
In what appears to be an effort to pave the way politically, Kelly really wants to talk about how Epstein wasn’t a “pedophile” but rather into “barely legal” 15-year-olds. (Oh no!)
Megyn Kelly says that Jeffrey Epstein was probably not a pedophile, preferred ‘barely legal’ 15-year-old girls
With just a handful of Republican defectors pushing for the release of Epstein documents over the objections of Donald Trump and his loyalists, Megyn Kelly appears to be doing damage control.
During the Wednesday, November 12 episode of her podcast, Kelly claimed that she knows “somebody very, very close to this case who is in a position to know virtually everything. Not everything, but virtually everything.”
Kelly continued: “And this person has told me from the start years and years ago that Jeffrey Epstein, in this person’s view, was not a pedophile.”
As you may have guessed, she’s drawing the line between children who have not yet started puberty and children who have started puberty.
“He was into the barely legal type. Like, he liked 15-year-old girls,” Kelly described. There is nothing barely legal about a grown man preying upon 15-year-olds. It is a crime! Not barely legal, but fully illegal.
Megyn Kelly: "I know somebody very close to this case…Jeffrey Epstein, in this person's view, was not a pedophile…He was into the barely legal type, like he liked 15 year old girls…He wasn't into like 8 year olds…There's a difference between a 15 year old and a 5 year old." pic.twitter.com/a7wmT3BRJU
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 13, 2025
“And I realize this is disgusting,” Kelly admitted. She claimed: “I’m definitely not trying to make an excuse for this.”
Nonetheless, she continued, noting that Epstein”wasn’t into, like, 8-year-olds.”
(There are often legal distinctions between the sexual abuse of children below certain age thresholds, but it remains a crime nonetheless)
“But he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were,” Kelly described, “but would look legal to a passerby.”
Kelly noted that Pam Bondi has claimed that authorities found CSAM on Epstein’s devices, saying “they used to call it kiddie porn, now they call it child sexual abuse material” and adding: “I don’t really trust Pam Bondi’s word on the Epstein matters anymore.”
‘There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old’
“Yeah, so I don’t know what’s true about him,” Megyn Kelly said of late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
“But we have yet to see anybody come forward and say I was under 10, I was under 14 when I first came within his purview,” she added.
For the record, Epstein’s youngest known victim was 14 years old. That could be as young as an eighth grader.
“You can say that’s a distinction without a difference. I think there is a difference,” Kelly insisted. “There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know?”
There is a difference, sure. But, when we are talking about decades-older adult men — not, say, slightly older teens — does the distinction matter? What, one wonders, is the point of quibbling over words, here?
In fairness, when it comes to the facts of what a pedophile is and is not, Kelly is correct.
A pedophile is someone with sexual interest in a prepubescent child. A hebephile has an interest in more tween-aged victims. And an ephebophile is more interested in teens (some of whom may be legal adults, others not).
There is a reason that we don’t really toss around these other two labels. Because, like someone being a little too familiar with age of consent laws from state to state and country to country, it doesn’t sound like a fun fact.
It sounds like you’re being overly technical and splitting hairs because you’re a creep. Sometimes, when drawing a distinction sounds like defending an evil man, you just need to focus less upon being technically accurate.
Comedian Gianmarco Soresi has a stand-up about this. He has even repurposed it more recently to discuss Epstein and Trump this very week.
Right now, Trump loyalists are circling the wagons and bracing for the truth to come out
These sorts of distinctions come up in other contexts. For example, people will say “murderer” about someone who may have committed manslaughter.
(In this area, being technically correct may help you avoid a lawsuit — whereas “your honor, I am merely a hebephile and this person is defaming me” is unlikely to get you far in court)
The real question here is why Megyn Kelly is choosing to mince words so carefully about Jeffrey Epstein at this particular time.
We do not claim to know the former Fox host, former NBC host, current podcaster’s inner-most thoughts.
However, at this time, the release of extremely damning material connecting Donald Trump to young teenage girls — like the “barely legal” 15-year-olds to whom Kelly referred — appears imminent.
Where others in the MAGA cult are looking beyond Trump, others like Mike Johnson and Megyn Kelly appear desperate to do damage control. If that isn’t their goal, one has to wonder just what is.