Why Don Lemon Feels 'Vindicated' After CNN Ousting
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Months after being let go from CNN, Don Lemon is speaking up.
The former host joined Kara Swisher on her podcast this week, where he opened up about his feelings following the ousting of former CNN CEO Christ Licht in the wake of his own departure.
So, how is feeling, in a word? "Vindicated."
Lemon was fired from his morning show in April, following controversial commentary he made about women. It's unclear if that's the reason for being let go, but Lemon said it came as a shock to him, with the news being relayed to him through his agent, rather than anyone at the company, while CNN said Lemon was offered a meeting to discuss and refused.
Not long later, Licht followed him out the door after a scathing profile in The Atlantic cited 100 employees who questioned his ability to manage the news organization.
Lemon pointed to that story when speaking with Swisher, certain that it cleared up anything that may have been left uncertain. "I think people get what happened,” he said. "Read the subsequent stories that came out, and you know, how it played out, and they are gone now. So do I feel vindicated in that sense? Yes, I do.”
He then reflected on the controversy that may have led to him being let go, when he said on air that “a woman is considered to be in their prime in 20s and 30s and maybe 40s," and that Google would back him up, when speaking about presidential candidate Nikki Haley.
He apologized on Twitter but told Swisher that, as much as he would have liked to, he was “never allowed to address the issue on the air." He later indicated that Licht's predecessor, Jeff Zucker, whom he called “the best news executive who I have ever worked for,” would have handled things differently.
“He understood that when you are in those conversations, just as in your regular conversations that you have across the dinner table or in a restaurant, you don’t always say things perfectly," he explained, describing how supportive the former exec was. "If we got something wrong, we apologized, we explained it and he supported us and we moved on."
He continued, "It doesn’t have to be the end of the world or a big issue unless you are looking for a reason to get rid of someone.”
But Lemon is moving past all of that and looking to the future. It sounds like he's not quite sure what's coming next yet, but he knows that he wants "to do something next that scares the s--t out of me."
Shortly after leaving CNN, he said he was in no "rush" to get back to work.
"You guys are more worried about me than I am," he said on the red carpet of TIME 100 Gala.
“I had a very successful career in cable news for a very long time," he told Swisher. "I got to do and say exactly what I wanted to. I have and had a very important voice that most people get to hear on that platform, and still don’t. But I am going to lean into the future of this medium and do something that scares me.”
He also specified that he's looking to reach bigger and different audiences: "I don’t want to keep preaching to the choir."
