CNN This Morning‘s Don Lemon has never played the role of a straight-arrow, buttoned-down news anchor type. As an out gay man, he’s occasionally flirted with a somewhat nervy and even flamboyant demeanor at times, closer in spirit to Andy Cohen than Anderson Cooper.
CNN has tended to cut him a fair amount of slack, of course. Even when he seemed to take seriously a wild theory that the missing Malaysian jet that disappeared in 2014 might been Bermuda Triangle-d. Even when he got bombed in New Orleans during New year’s Eve coverage on 12.31.16.
But then he stepped into real shit on 2.16.23 when he declared that 51 year-old Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime. Women, he meant, are in their prime in their 20s, 30s and early 40s —- an obvious reference to their sexual peak, which is demeaning as hell when you’re talking about a Presidential candidate or any woman serving in any professional capacity.
And now, as of yesterday morning (4.5), Lemon has Variety‘s Tatiana Siegel all over his ass.
Business Insider is reporting that Lemon is considering a possible lawsuit over Siegel’s takedown piece, which alleges that he has a history of demeaning and occasionally threatening and female colleagues including Soledad O’Brien, Kyra Phillips and Nancy Grace.
“[CNN has] known for years,” a media source has told the New York Post. “But Lemon is not going to sue because then they’d have to depose people and more stuff could come out.”
One thing in Siegel’s story is worded evasively. She reports that in 2014, Lemon “drew widespread condemnation when he told a Bill Cosby rape accuser that she could have stopped an attack by biting the comedian’s penis.” That implies that Cosby may have been trying to physically overpower or manhandle the victim. In fact the victim had told Lemon that Cosby was somehow forcing her to give him a blowjob. Lemon suggested that the victim could have stopped that activity right quick with her teeth.
It was a very Don Lemon-y comment, for sure. I can’t imagine any TV news anchor coming within 100 feet of this line of questioning. But Lemon has always been Lemon.
