To Kelly, I looked up her quote. It's a little more than a question....
“But what is racist?” Kelly asked. “You truly do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface at Halloween or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween.”
“Back when I was a kid, that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character."
Kelly made reference to "Real Housewives of New York" star Luann de Lesseps being criticized for dressing as Diana Ross.
"She made her skin look darker than it really is and people said that that was racist," she said. "And I don't know, I felt like who doesn't love Diana Ross? She wants to look like Diana Ross for one day. I don't know how, like, that got racist on Halloween."
It does seem like she genuinely didn't know...which is a little concerning.
But there are a ton of articles, don't have the time, that backup my earlier assertion from what I remember that her ratings were awful and they were looking for an excuse. I don't know what they had to pay out, but even if it was her whole salary/contract, bad ratings cost more in the form of less advertising dollars. Same reason a head coach in college gets fired. Even though they have to payout the contract, having a successful product is worth more...
I don't think her comments warranted a firing. But the swiftness in which it occured makes me think NBC was already wanting to pull the plug, so the backlash (which I would argue is kind of deserved, and did result in the apology which is all that really was necessitated) was all they needed.
I could be wrong.