Credit: Variety
CNN anchor Don Lemon keeps putting himself in the spotlight, but not for anything great. New misogynistic behavior has been brought to light recently.
When Lemon was co-hosting the CNN show “Live From” with Kyra Phillips, there was tension between them. On some occasions, the producer has to take Lemon off during a commercial break because he was antagonizing his cohost.
Variety reported:
Amid the charged atmosphere, sources say Lemon disrespected colleague Nancy Grace on the air and Soledad O’Brien during an editorial meeting attended by roughly 30 staffers.
But his antipathy toward Phillips was particularly concerning and had many members of the close-knit Atlanta news team on edge. While Phillips was on assignment in Iraq — a high-profile gig that Lemon coveted — he vented his disappointment at being passed over by tearing up pictures and notes on top of and inside Phillips’ desk in the news pod they shared, according to two sources who worked there at the time. When she returned from Iraq, things only got weirder. One night while dining with members of the news team, she received the first of two threatening text messages from an unknown number on her flip phone that warned, “Now you’ve crossed the line, and you’re going to pay for it.” Phillips was visibly rattled and quickly enlisted CNN’s higher-ups to identify the sender.
Remarkably, the texts were traced back to Lemon, according to those same sources. A human resources investigation was launched, and while the findings were never disclosed to the growing pool of staffers who were aware of the situation, Lemon was abruptly pulled from his co-anchor duties with Phillips and moved to the weekends. It was a demotion by any objective measure and understood to be some kind of disciplinary action. It appears to be the last time he was paired with a female anchor until his most recent assignment on “CNN This Morning With Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow, and Kaitlan Collins.”
“Don says the alleged incident never occurred and that he was never notified of any investigation. CNN cannot corroborate the alleged events from 15 years ago,” a CNN spokesperson said.
Lemon was taken from his own primetime show to an ensemble cast show, and the next step could be for him to come-keenly leave the network. The newest version of CNN’s morning show, “CNN This Morning,” hosted by Lemon, Poppy Harlow, and Kaitlan Collins is the lowest-rated CNN morning show of any in its history.
“Since its Nov. 1, 2022 launch, “CNN This Morning” — hosted by Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow, and Kaitlan Collins — has drawn in the lowest viewership among adults 25-54, the key demographic for cable news, and the second-lowest total viewership among each iteration of the network’s morning programming since ‘New Day’ was launched in June 2013, according to Nielsen data,” Fox News shared.
Lemon has dropped total viewership drastically. In the demo, viewership has decreased by 21% with the show’s first three months on-air.
