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CNN host Don Lemon is famous–or, rather, infamous–for making sexist comments about women on air, like his recent declaration that possible GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley was “past her prime” at age 51. (Lemon himself is 57.)
Well, it turns out that Lemon is even more awful to women behind the scenes, at least according to CNN insiders interviewed by Variety. Lemon’s skirmishes with female coworkers seems to have first kicked into high gear some 15 years ago when he allegedly sent anonymous threatening emails to his then-co-anchor Kyra Phillips. As Variety tells it:
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.
Lemon denied the incident had ever happened through a CNN spokesperson, and CNN says it can’t confirm what happened.
Lemon also apparently told a female producer she was “fat” and belittled his colleagues Nancy Grace and Soledad O’Brien, mocking the former on-air and suggesting that the latter wasn’t “really” black at an editorial meeting. Even aside from the alleged misogyny, the Variety report portrays Lemon as something of a narcissistic, name-dropping, fame-chasing diva generally. Not a nice guy.
Nonetheless, he’s apparently a charmer in person (at least if you’re not a woman he’s pissed off at), and Lemon has managed to charm his way out of consequences for his alleged actions over the years, but I wonder if the Variety report, coming on top of the Haley comments, will be enough for CNN to push him out the door.
While conservatives generally hate the openly gay Lemon–he has been a frequent target for Donald Trump–he has at least one right-wing defender in the press. Well, sort of. John Nolte at Breitbart dismisses the Variety report as “a big, fat nothingburger,” saying that
CNN wants to fire Lemon, but they can’t fire him for being what he is—an unprofessional, dishonest, left-wing, basement-rated failure. You see, if CNN fires Lemon for that, CNN will have to fire everyone for that. So, CNN is instead smearing him as a misogynist, making his firing acceptable to the handful of far-leftists who still watch CNNLOL.
It’s all a big conspiracy, I tells ya!
I have zero sympathy for Lemon.
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I’ve never liked Don Lemon. I’ve always been bothered by his wishy-washy style of journalism and this honestly does not surprise me at all. I’m so sorry to the women who’ve had to deal with it though.
Also, far leftists that watch CNN? Ugh, I’m so tired of the right wing total misunderstanding of just how incredibly right-wing this entire country’s mainstream news media is. CNN is center right if it’s anything. They are, of course, comparing it to Rupert Murdoch-owned media which is extreme right. Go fuck yourself, Nolte.
What the actual eff. And he’s still working there.
He needs to go.
“…the handful of far-leftists who still watch CNNLOL.”
People talk about a liberal or left wing bubble all the friggin’ time but it’s nothing compared to to the bubble the right have constructed for themselves. I’m convinced that even those who really should know better have convinced themselves that CNN actually is a bastion of liberal bias with an audience consisting solely of woke socialists. This is a bubble where Fox accidentally reported the truth once and their audience started shouting them down and threatened to go to Newsmax and OANN where they could more reliably be told what they wanted to hear.
Wow, even upper-middle-class white gay men harass their female coworkers? Why the hell? Just a status/dominance thing?
Of course, when these types fail it always tends to be upwards, just as when people like me succeed it always tends to be downwards. :/
@Surplus
Don Lemon is Black, but yes. Sometimes even including sexual harassment – nothing about it requires actually being attracted to the people they’re harassing, and I think it very much is a power trip for some of them.
It’s even been written about on Everyday Feminism back in 2013: https://everydayfeminism.com/2013/03/gay-mens-sexism-and-womens-bodies/
@Cyborgette:
Honestly (and I haven’t read the link so don’t know if it goes into that or not), one could easily get the impression that a small but very vocal minority of gay men just never grew out of the ‘eww, girl cooties’ stage… and being gay meant they never felt any need to work around that.
(See also Milo Y.)
This is my un-surprised face. I don’t watch CNN often, haven’t in years, but every time I see that guy, he came off exactly like this.
Maybe it’s the smirk? Maybe it’s that as a Woman Of A Certain Age (whom he’d belittle), I’ve had decades’ worth of upgrading my “spot the sexist asshole” radar?
@Jenora: I must say, the random times I’ve seen him, I too also thought “oh, he’s one of those gay men who’s so repelled by women and so insecure in his masculinity that he makes their life hell.” Must! Destroy! Girl Cooties indeed.
I didn’t know cable was still a thing.
For posterity, today (Apr. 24) CNN fired this low-rated misogynist’s ass. Through a Twitter announcement. Burn!