Don Lemon

Don Lemon (born March 1, 1966) is an American television journalist best known for being a host on CNN from 2014 until 2023.

He anchored weekend news programs on local television stations in Alabama and Pennsylvania during his early days as a journalist.

Lemon worked as a news correspondent for NBC on its programming, such as Today and NBC Nightly News.

Lemon was born March 1, 1966, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the son of Katherine Marie (Bouligney) and Wilmon Lee Richardson.

His father was a prominent attorney, who was part of a lawsuit successfully challenging segregation of public transportation in Baton Rouge.

Lemon was born under the surname of his mother's then-husband, and discovered that Richardson was his father when he was five.

He is of mostly African-American ancestry, along with Creole; his maternal grandmother was the daughter of a black mother and a white father, who had French and Scots-Irish ancestry.

He attended Baker High School, a public high school in the town of Baker in East Baton Rouge Parish.

Lemon was voted class president during his senior year.

Lemon attended Louisiana State University where he was a Republican and voted for Ronald Reagan.

He later graduated from Brooklyn College with a major in broadcast journalism in 1996 at the age of 30.

While at Brooklyn College, he interned at WNYW.

He worked for Fox affiliates in St. Louis and Chicago for several years, and was a correspondent for NBC affiliates in Philadelphia and Chicago.

Early in his career, Lemon reported as a weekend news anchor for WBRC in Birmingham, Alabama, and for WCAU in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

For several years he was an anchor and investigative reporter for Fox affiliate KTVI in St. Louis, Missouri, and Fox's Chicago affiliate.

Lemon reported for NBC News's New York City operations, including working as a correspondent for both Today, and NBC Nightly News; and as an anchor on Weekend Today and programs on MSNBC.

Lemon is also a recipient of an Edward R. Murrow Award in 2002 for his coverage of the capture of the Washington, D.C. snipers.

He also received three regional Emmy Awards for his special report on real estate in Chicago and a business feature on craigslist.

In 2003, he began working at NBC owned-and-operated station WMAQ-TV in Chicago, and was a reporter and local news co-anchor.

He won three Emmys for local reporting while at WMAQ.

He joined CNN in 2006, also as a correspondent and later achieved prominence as the presenter of Don Lemon Tonight from 2014 to 2022.

He most recently served as a co-host of CNN This Morning, alongside Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow.

After several on-air controversies and reports of alleged decades-long instances of sexism and misogyny he was fired from CNN in April 2023.

Lemon joined CNN in September 2006.

He has been outspoken in his work at CNN, criticizing the state of cable news and questioning the network publicly.

He has also voiced strong opinions on ways that the African American community can improve their lives, which has caused some controversy.

In 2014, CNN began to pilot prime time shows hosted by Lemon, including The Eleventh Hour and The Don Lemon Show.

Following the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Lemon began to host a special, nightly program featuring discussion and analysis of the event by aviation experts.

After a realignment of CNN's schedule following the cancellation of Piers Morgan Live, this hour was replaced by the news program CNN Tonight; Lemon would later become the permanent host of the hour as CNN Tonight with Don Lemon.

Lemon has also participated in CNN's New Year's Eve Live as a correspondent from a city in the Central Time Zone, most often alongside fellow CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin.

In May 2021, it was announced that Lemon, along with CNN fellow journalist Chris Cuomo, would launch a podcast named The Handoff centering around "politics and personal".

On May 17, CNN Tonight with Don Lemon was retitled to simply Don Lemon Tonight; Lemon apologized for how he teased the rebranding on his show, stating that he "didn't mean to set the internet on fire"—in reference to viewers who thought that Lemon would be departing CNN.

In February 2022, CNN announced Lemon would be hosting a talk show for CNN's then-forthcoming streaming service CNN+ called The Don Lemon Show.

Two episodes were released in the service's sole month of operation in April 2022.

On September 15, 2022, it was announced that Lemon would co-anchor a new CNN morning show with Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow later in the year.

On October 12, 2022, it was announced that the morning show would be named CNN This Morning.

Lemon's tenure on the show ended with his April 2023 firing.

Lemon's outspoken criticism of Donald Trump made him a target of the president.

In March 2016, Lemon was interviewing Omarosa Newman and Kellyanne Conway about the Republican presidential primary.

In January 2018, after Trump controversially referred to countries such as El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras as "shitholes" during a meeting on immigration, Lemon opened CNN Tonight with a proclamation that "The president of the United States is racist. A lot of us already knew that."