Interview: Kennedy

The TV host and one-name celeb talks about cherry vodka, teenage rebellion, Frank Zappa, free-range parenting, and life as Fox’s token libertarian. 

- Katherine Mangu-Ward

WHEN KURT LODER and Penn Jillette tell you you’re a libertarian, you might be a libertarian.

Once upon a time, Kennedy was one of America’s most famous Republicans. At the tender age of 20, Lisa Kennedy Montgomery became a breakout personality at MTV, combining coverage of alternative music with political news starting in 1992. Frizzy-haired, bespectacled, and Doc Martens–clad, Kennedy quickly came out as a Republican, bringing ideological diversity to cable long before Fox News was a twinkle in founder Roger Ailes’ eye.

She rubbed shoulders with plenty of musicians and politicians at MTV, as well as in her later gigs as a radio personality and a game show host. She also picked up a degree in philosophy from the University of California, Los Angeles, in those years, along with professional snowboarding husband Dave Lee and a couple of kids.

These days, Kennedy calls herself a libertarian, thanks in part to prompting from some famous friends, and she’s still an odd duck. At a network famous for smiling glossy blondes, Kennedy brings a sharp brunette sensibility to Fox’s talent pool. She first appeared on The Independents, the show she co-hosted with FreeThink’s Kmele Foster and Reason’s Matt Welch. It was cancelled in 2015, but quickly replaced with Kennedy, an eponymous solo show that hearkens more explicitly back to her V.J. days. It airs at 8 p.m. most weeknights on Fox Business, and approaches the news of the day with a wink and nudge, smuggling serious monologues about government spending, regulatory overreach, and political malfeasance in between segments driven by cat videos and memes.