Cornell Accuser's Lawyer Rebukes Megyn Kelly Over Appearance Remarks

Megyn Kelly told her audience that the woman suing seven Cornell fraternity members for rape may have agreed to sex with four of them because of the way she looks. "No one will even consider the possibility that this woman made a decision to get it on with four men total, not seven, and enjoyed it because, I'm just gonna be honest, she's not the most attractive gal," the 55-year-old host said on The Megyn Kelly Show, in a clip that spread across social media in early October.

The accuser's attorney answered with a question about Kelly's own record. "Ms. Kelly has publicly condemned Ms. Doe for taking two weeks to go to the police," Thomas P. Giuffra told The Daily Beast. "I would ask Ms. Kelly why it took her over a decade to report unwanted sexual advances from her boss?"

The woman, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, filed a lawsuit on Sept. 16, 2026, against Cornell University and seven former members of the Chi Phi fraternity. She says she was drugged and raped at the fraternity house in Ithaca, New York, in 2024, when she was 20. The accused men have all denied wrongdoing. Some say the sexual activity was consensual. Others say they were not involved at all. No criminal charges were filed.

What Kelly said on the air

Kelly did not stop at the one line about the accuser's looks. "She's extremely beefy in like her arms and her legs. She has a whole video online talking about her cankles," she said. "And she possibly enjoyed being admired. This is how women make these mistakes."

She built that into a theory of the case. "She's probably thrilled to be so admired because she clearly didn't grow up the incredibly beautiful one. I'm not trying to be insulting," Kelly said. "I'm just trying to tell you the narrative that is likely to have occurred here, in my opinion. And why can't we account for that possibility? That the girl who was never the most sought after suddenly had four guys who wanted to have sex with her. And she counted this, yeah, in her inebriated state, as a win. And liked the feeling of being sexy and desired and wanted. It happens. Sorry, it does. And that's why she kept saying yes. Why do we have to go right to she's a victim? Even she took weeks to get there."

Kelly's main complaint, according to The Daily Beast, was that the woman waited three weeks to report the incident to campus police. "This is so disempowering to all of womankind, to all of us, to our daughters. We are capable of making decisions," Kelly said. "She made the decision to drink and then show up at a fraternity house at 11 o'clock."

The reporting delay became the whole argument

Kelly leaned on the timeline over and over. "Do you think it would take you three weeks?" she asked. She also questioned why the woman went to campus officers rather than city police. "Don't you think you'd be calling the Ithaca police?" Kelly said, before listing what bothered her: "The delay, the chatting with the friends, and then the decision to go."

Doe gave her own explanation during the university's investigation. She said she felt shame and did not initially recognize what had happened to her as rape, according to transcripts obtained by The New York Times.

Kelly's posts on X about the three-week gap drew a Community Note pointing readers to her own account of being harassed by former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. The note said Kelly did not report her own harassment by Ailes for over a decade and spoke positively of him in the meantime.

What Kelly has written about Roger Ailes

In her 2016 memoir, Kelly wrote that soon after she joined Fox News, Ailes, then the network's chairman, began sexually harassing her. She said she told a supervisor at the time and gave a full account to the network's investigators in 2016.

She also explained why she stayed quiet in public. Coming forward earlier, she has said, would have been a "suicide mission" for her professionally.

That is the gap Giuffra pointed at. "Perhaps she should reflect why it is difficult for women to come forward under these circumstances and honor the courage that it takes," he said.

The attorney called the comments mean-spirited

Giuffra told The Daily Beast he did not think Kelly's remarks deserved a point-by-point rebuttal, but he said the effect of them worried him. "When people with a following attack, it gives others permission to attack," he said. "It goes without saying that Jane Doe has been through enough."

He added that responding only hands a platform to people who want to objectify women and minimize their worth, and said that is exactly what is happening to his client.

What the lawsuit alleges

Doe's complaint says she was plied with alcohol and drugs, including ketamine, at the Chi Phi house in October 2024, and was then assaulted for hours by a group of fraternity members while she was in no condition to consent. The suit says messages from a Snapchat group thread show the defendants encouraging other brothers to come to the room. One of the men named in the suit allegedly messaged a group chat that there was "free p---y" upstairs, a reference to Doe.

She reported the incident and gave investigators a detailed account. After reviewing a summary of her interview, the local district attorney declined to bring criminal charges or order further investigation. The matter continued only inside Cornell's own disciplinary system.

Two of the seven men named in the lawsuit were expelled. Two were suspended. The other three received lighter punishments. Two men who were in the room during the incident were ordered to submit "reflection papers." Doe dropped out of school. The district attorney's office reopened its investigation in late September, after she filed her civil suit.

Cornell is defending its investigation and reviewing it anyway

The university pushed back on the idea that the men got off easy. "Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false," Kyle Kimball, vice president of university relations, said in a September 28 statement. He said continuing that narrative is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault.

On October 3, Cornell president Michael I. Kotlikoff said the school will take part in an independent investigation into how it handled Doe's 2024 report. "I believe we as an administration and we as a community must do better," he said.

Alyssa Milano posted an open letter

Actress and activist Alyssa Milano wrote a long open letter to Kelly on Substack, asking a blunt question: "What the f*ck is wrong with you?"

"You owe women an apology for promoting misogyny. You owe Jane Doe an apology for making her body part of your dumb argument," Milano wrote. "You owe your audience a correction: your opinion of a victim has nothing to do with her consent. You are part of the problem."

Tennis great Martina Navratilova wrote on X on October 7 that Kelly keeps doubling down and called it vile. Journalist Mark Follman wrote on October 9 that Kelly's victim-blaming was a sad form of political grifting given her own experience with sexual harassment.

Some of the sharpest criticism came from people who side with Kelly on the underlying case. "I agree with Megyn Kelly on the Cornell Seven case, but I have no idea why she thinks attacking Jane Doe's looks helps her argument," Natalie Jean Beisner wrote on October 8. "Attractive women can seek male validation, too. And unattractive women can be sexually assaulted. Her appearance is completely irrelevant."

Kelly told Olivia Rodrigo to stick to singing

Olivia Rodrigo, 23, posted a statement backing the accuser. "Shame on Cornell and on every institution who protects rapists and abusers over women," the singer wrote. "I stand with Jane Doe. Her bravery reverberates across the country and the crimes against her will not go unpunished."

Kelly read the statement aloud on her Monday, October 5 show and responded with six words: "Shut up and stick to singing."

"I liked you better when you were in front of a microphone singing your weird little depressing songs," Kelly said. "Shut up. You don't know what you're talking about." She went on to say the culture war does not need, in her words, know-nothing morons who have been auto-tuned into fame. "Sit down and be quiet," she said. "Be quiet. Go away."

Rodrigo has raised money for abortion funds and domestic violence organizations through her Fund 4 Good. Other performers, including Florence Pugh and Lzzy Hale, have also spoken out about the case.

Letitia James is now the special prosecutor

New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed state Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor in the case. Kelly has been one of the loudest commentators questioning Doe's allegations and defending the accused students, and the appointment did nothing to cool her coverage.

What happens next runs on two tracks. James now controls the criminal side after the district attorney's office reopened its investigation, and the civil lawsuit against Cornell and the seven men moves separately. The men deny the allegations. Cornell says its punishments were real and is cooperating with an outside review of its own handling of the complaint.

The fight over how the accuser looks in photographs has nothing to do with either track. It is the part that traveled furthest anyway.