Megyn Kelly's Alex Jones Interview

2017eventclassic

Published September 6, 2026

Megyn Kelly's Alex Jones Interview was a June 2017 NBC News sit-down between anchor Megyn Kelly and InfoWars host Alex Jones that sparked advertiser boycotts, a Sandy Hook charity dropping Kelly, and a leaked-audio counterattack from Jones. The clash produced a week of image macros, the #JonesvKelly hashtag, and a Ben Garrison cartoon that turned the whole media war into a defining 2017 meme moment.

interview memesconspiracy memes2017 memesculture war memeshashtag memes

Overview

Megyn Kelly's Alex Jones Interview refers to the 17-minute NBC segment that aired June 18, 2017, on Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, in which Kelly pressed Jones on Pizzagate, terror attack theories, and his past comments on the Sandy Hook shooting1. The meme wrapping around it wasn't a single image but a week-long pileup: promo tweets, a car selfie of the two, ad-boycott headlines, a leaked pre-interview audio drop from InfoWars, and finally a Ben Garrison cartoon of Jones playing a fiddle shaped like Kelly's face4.

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The format that stuck online was the @yashar selfie photo, which Twitter users cropped into image macros mocking both figures and the awkward optics of an NBC anchor cozying up with the InfoWars host4. By interview night, viewers were splitting screens between NBC and Jones' own competing InfoWars livestream under the hashtag #JonesvKelly4.

Origin & Background

Platform
NBC broadcast / Twitter (viral spread)
Date
2017

On June 11, 2017, Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News anchor then hosting Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly on NBC, tweeted a preview clip announcing she'd sit down with InfoWars host Alex Jones the following Sunday1. Backlash started that same night, with critics arguing NBC was legitimizing Jones by putting him on primetime broadcast4.

The meme format broke open the next day, June 12, when Twitter user @yashar posted a selfie of Kelly and Jones grinning together in a car with the one-word caption "Wow," which racked up more than 800 retweets and 1,300 likes within 24 hours4.

How It Spread

Also on June 12, JPMorgan Chase pulled its ads from Kelly's show and asked NBC to keep its spots away from any promotion for the Jones segment, as reported by the Wall Street Journal2. The same week, the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation dropped Kelly as host of its Promise Champions Gala over Jones' past claims that the 2012 school shooting was staged3. Kelly responded on Twitter on June 13 defending the interview as journalism4.

Jones counterattacked on June 15 by posting audio from his pre-interview phone calls with Kelly on The Alex Jones Channel YouTube, framing her crew as "intelligence operatives" trying to misrepresent him; the upload passed 345,000 views inside a day4. Political cartoonist Ben Garrison followed on June 17 with an illustration of Jones fiddling a Kelly-faced violin4.

When the segment finally aired June 18, Jones counter-programmed it with his own livestream and Twitter latched onto the split-screen with #JonesvKelly4. CNN reported the next day that NBC's broadcast drew only 3.5 million viewers, the lowest rating the show had pulled to that point5.

How to Use This Meme

The reusable piece of the moment is the @yashar car selfie, typically cropped and captioned to mock media-and-conspiracy crossovers or awkward on-camera pairings. The #JonesvKelly hashtag is often invoked when two rival broadcasts go head-to-head in the same time slot.

Frequently Asked Questions

Megyn Kelly's Alex Jones Interview

2017eventclassic

Published September 6, 2026

Megyn Kelly's Alex Jones Interview was a June 2017 NBC News sit-down between anchor Megyn Kelly and InfoWars host Alex Jones that sparked advertiser boycotts, a Sandy Hook charity dropping Kelly, and a leaked-audio counterattack from Jones. The clash produced a week of image macros, the #JonesvKelly hashtag, and a Ben Garrison cartoon that turned the whole media war into a defining 2017 meme moment.

interview memes conspiracy memes 2017 memes culture war memes hashtag memes

Overview

Megyn Kelly's Alex Jones Interview refers to the 17-minute NBC segment that aired June 18, 2017, on Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, in which Kelly pressed Jones on Pizzagate, terror attack theories, and his past comments on the Sandy Hook shooting1. The meme wrapping around it wasn't a single image but a week-long pileup: promo tweets, a car selfie of the two, ad-boycott headlines, a leaked pre-interview audio drop from InfoWars, and finally a Ben Garrison cartoon of Jones playing a fiddle shaped like Kelly's face4.

Loading tweet...

The format that stuck online was the @yashar selfie photo, which Twitter users cropped into image macros mocking both figures and the awkward optics of an NBC anchor cozying up with the InfoWars host4. By interview night, viewers were splitting screens between NBC and Jones' own competing InfoWars livestream under the hashtag #JonesvKelly4.

Origin & Background

Platform
NBC broadcast / Twitter (viral spread)
Date
2017

On June 11, 2017, Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News anchor then hosting Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly on NBC, tweeted a preview clip announcing she'd sit down with InfoWars host Alex Jones the following Sunday1. Backlash started that same night, with critics arguing NBC was legitimizing Jones by putting him on primetime broadcast4.

The meme format broke open the next day, June 12, when Twitter user @yashar posted a selfie of Kelly and Jones grinning together in a car with the one-word caption "Wow," which racked up more than 800 retweets and 1,300 likes within 24 hours4.

How It Spread

Also on June 12, JPMorgan Chase pulled its ads from Kelly's show and asked NBC to keep its spots away from any promotion for the Jones segment, as reported by the Wall Street Journal2. The same week, the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation dropped Kelly as host of its Promise Champions Gala over Jones' past claims that the 2012 school shooting was staged3. Kelly responded on Twitter on June 13 defending the interview as journalism4.

Jones counterattacked on June 15 by posting audio from his pre-interview phone calls with Kelly on The Alex Jones Channel YouTube, framing her crew as "intelligence operatives" trying to misrepresent him; the upload passed 345,000 views inside a day4. Political cartoonist Ben Garrison followed on June 17 with an illustration of Jones fiddling a Kelly-faced violin4.

When the segment finally aired June 18, Jones counter-programmed it with his own livestream and Twitter latched onto the split-screen with #JonesvKelly4. CNN reported the next day that NBC's broadcast drew only 3.5 million viewers, the lowest rating the show had pulled to that point5.

How to Use This Meme

The reusable piece of the moment is the @yashar car selfie, typically cropped and captioned to mock media-and-conspiracy crossovers or awkward on-camera pairings. The #JonesvKelly hashtag is often invoked when two rival broadcasts go head-to-head in the same time slot.

Frequently Asked Questions