For someone who has failed upward so spectacularly throughout his inexplicable career, the only possible outcome was an inevitable, disastrous crash and exit from corporate media. It appears Don Lemon might finally be discovering that few people actually like watching him or working with him.
The American Tribune previously reported that Lemon has faced a difficult few months since CNN’s ownership changed hands to people who might actually care about presenting real news. Lemon, saved from a rash of firings that impacted former co-host Chris Cuomo and the insufferable purveyor of fake news Brian Stelter, endured an embarrassing demotion to the early hours for a shared morning broadcast. And his humiliation wasn’t complete.
Honestly, perhaps the best thing for the rest of us is that he wasn’t fired so that we all get to watch him suffer a slower and more destructive finale. The American Tribune wrote:
CNN’s Don Lemon, demoted a few months ago in a CNN shake up that saw several of his primetime colleagues axed, was missing from his new morning show’s recent broadcast after several outlets reported he had screamed at one of his new co-hosts and left her in tears.
Lemon was already not thrilled to be sharing screen time with two additional hosts and is reportedly “difficult to work with” – so this almost seemed like it would be a matter of when and not a matter of if that tensions boiled over.
Reports came in quickly that Lemon screamed at one of his younger, female co-hosts over outrage that she dared to interrupt him. His outburst left the woman in tears and running out of the studio.
No doubt, the combination of his demotion, miserable ratings, and reality check crashed into his ego and he didn’t have the ability to maintain his professionalism. Outkick noted how Lemon has helped lead CNN to a ratings catastrophe.
CNN has long failed to keep pace with its cable news competitors Fox News and MSNBC during the morning hours. But it hasn’t been this bad in quite some time.
The revamped program with Lemon is the network’s lowest-rated morning show iteration in nearly a decade…
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,” the outlet comments…
CNN This Morning” draws fewer than 400,000 viewers a day.
How much longer can this facade of a career last?
In the immediate aftermath, it was clear the operation wasn’t working. Lemon was asked to take a break from the next scheduled broadcast and later he skipped hanging out with his colleagues as an inconveniently-timed Christmas party in D.C. This despite the fact they had a scheduled event to get drinks together and appear as a cohesive unit.
Former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly blasted Lemon for his unprofessional conduct on her Sirius XM podcast.
“I co-hosted a show with Bill Hemmer for three years. I was on the air with Bret Baier more times than I can count,” Kelly said. “And sometimes somebody gets on your nerves. What you don’t do is scream at them after the fact. Later you say, oh, we stepped on each other. It’s all about servicing the audience, if you’re a professional.”
“If you’re a douchebag, you scream at the woman next to you and blame it on her,” she hilariously stated. “Again, I’ve co-hosted more hours than I can count with a lot of guys with big egos, appropriately big egos. And never, never has, have I screamed at a colleague after like a co-host or had him scream at me.”
It all adds to a guessing game of how much longer the new suits will put up with Don Lemon.
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