Don Lemon Terminated by CNN After 17 Years

Brian Steinberg
·4 min read
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Don Lemon is leaving CNN after 17 years of pushing its boundaries.

The anchor, who had become one of the Warner Bros. Discovery network’s most popular faces in recent years, announced on social media Monday that he had been ousted from CNN.

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“I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at play,” Lemon said. “With that said, I want to thank my colleagues and the many teams I have worked with for an incredible run. They are the most talented journalists in the business, and I wish them all the best.”

Lemon has been under scrutiny since February, when remarks he made on CNN’s morning program generated a whirlwind of unwanted publicity. Lemon suggested Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was past her “prime,” a comment that has, despite multiple apologies from the anchor, continued to hover over him. Variety reported earlier this month that the anchor’s behavior toward women has been called into question several times over the course of his career.

At CNN, according to a person familiar with the matter, executives had grown concerned about Lemon’s ability to connect with audiences. Bookers were having difficulty lining up certain guests, this person says, and ad-sales executives at corporate parent Warner Bros. Discovery faced headwinds when trying to lure sponsors to the program.

CNN’s dismissal of the anchor was not warm. A senior CNN executive — not CEO Chris Licht — called Lemon’s agent at UTA, Jay Sures, according to one person familiar with the exchange. Lemon had just been on “CNN This Morning” for its Monday broadcast. In a statement, CNN disputed those details. “Lemon was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter,” the company said.

Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins, Lemon’s A.M. co-anchors, are expected to take up the reins at “CNN This Morning,” according to a person familiar with the matter, and they may address the situation on Tuesday’s broadcast.

Lemon’s exit is the latest in a series of chaotic maneuvers at CNN, where CEO Licht has been scrambling, first to move the network from the more passionate, activist positioning it had under former chief Jeff Zucker, and second to help it gain better viewership against its rivals, MSNBC and Fox News Channel. CNN’s ratings have ebbed significantly since the end of the 2020 election, and since coming on board last year, Licht has experimented with everything from primetime town halls to Sunday-night documentaries,

The morning show has been under close observation because Licht has enjoyed success with the format in the past. As a producer at MSNBC and CBS News, Licht helped launch both “Morning Joe” and “CBS This Morning,” programs that used a roundtable format to explore hot topics in a conversational but jovial way, and avoided some of the frillier elements of morning news.

Lemon has cut a big swath at CNN in recent years. During Zucker’s tenure, he was moved from working on weekends to hosting a show in late primetime, where he enjoyed leeway to poke at cultural issues and make incendiary statements. “This is CNN Tonight. I’m Don Lemon. The president of the United States is racist. A lot of us already knew that,” he said while opening a broadcast in 2018. Lemon has long harbored aspirations of running a looser talk show, and nearly met his goal in 2022 when he was scheduled to host a weekly talk show — with a live, in-studio audience — on the now-scuttled streaming service CNN+. He also gained notice for his after-hour antics on CNN’s coverage of New Year’s Eve, where he and co-host Brooke Baldwin would often imbibe, sometimes on camera.

Now Lemon will have to find a new way to test his limits, while CNN seems to have found new ones.

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