Megyn Kelly reflects on telling son his teacher died from coronavirus: ‘It was just awful’

Former Fox News and NBC News anchor Megyn Kelly opened up in a new interview about telling her 10-year-old son that his music teacher died after contracting coronavirus.

Kelly described the moment she and her husband, Douglas Brunt, heard the news about Don Sorel, her son Yates’s music teacher. 

“I’m in the middle of this joyful moment with Yates and [Doug] shows me the [news] and it’s like, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do? Am I going to ruin this moment? But he’s got to know. We have to tell them because all the boys are Zooming and they’re all on this group text where they text every 2 minutes. There’s no keeping it from him,’” Kelly told People magazine. 

“I couldn’t get it out without crying, and then he cried. We held each other,” she added.

Classes were canceled at her son’s school the following day to honor the educator, and Kelly said her son and his classmates “had a Zoom meeting in memory of Mr. Sorel, and his teacher shared that [her fellow] teachers had done the same thing earlier that day — that they’d all been in tears and laughter sharing memories of [Sorel].”

“And then the boys … these are 9- and 10-year-old fourth-graders, and each one had such a sweet story about the guy, how he made them laugh, how he made them love music, how he made them laugh at themselves,” Kelly told People. 

The anchor called it “the sweetest thing and the saddest thing.”

“You don’t want it to happen to anybody, but you just … there’s nothing you can do,” Kelly said.

“It was awful. It was just awful.”

The school had initially told parents that Sorel, who was 62 years old, was out of intensive care and “doing better” before his condition changed “so suddenly,” according to the magazine. 

“I said, ‘I have something to tell you about Mr. Sorel.’ And I think maybe [Yates] was wondering if it was more good news because the last update had been good,” she said. “And then we said, ‘It’s bad news.’ And he just looked confused. And we were confused too.”

Richie Sambora, the former lead guitarist of the rock band Bon Jovi, is a friend of Kelly’s family, and the former anchor said he stepped in to give her son virtual music lessons and gifted him a guitar.

“He’s so sweet. He spent so much time with Yates,” Kelly said. “Yates came off that phone on cloud nine.”

Kelly tweeted earlier this month about the music teacher’s death, sharing that the educator made her son “look forward to going to school, made him love music; all of the kids adored him. Telling Yates was awful. Pain for us is one thing; pain for one’s child is in a different league.”

Our son Yates’s music teacher died yesterday of COVID-19. Don Sorel made Yates look forward to going to school, made him love music; all of the kids adored him. Telling Yates was awful. Pain for us is one thing; pain for one’s child is in a different league. RIP, Mr. Sorel.

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) April 8, 2020