CNN’s Don Lemon threatened female coworker in 2008: report

CNN host Don Lemon, one of the most recognizable personalities in the entire cable news business, has a history of making offensive comments and threats to female staffers who anger him, according to a new report.

Different published extensive exposés this week on Lemon’s behavior in relation to women, indicating a pattern of abusive and threatening behavior by the former prime-time anchor, who currently hosts CNN’s revamped morning program with Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow.

The report states that, among other incidents, while Lemon was anchoring CNN’s “Live From” program in 2008, he became upset when he was passed over for a reporting assignment for Kyra Phillips, which has left the network.

Citing unnamed network sources at the time, Variety reported that Phillips received two threatening text messages from an unknown sender after he was given a reporting mission saying, “Now you’re over it. the line, and you will pay for it. .”

The texts were eventually traced by network management back to Lemon, the outlet reported.

“Don said the alleged incident never happened and that he was not notified of any investigation,” a spokesperson for the network told Variety. “CNN cannot corroborate alleged events from 15 years ago.”

In a separate statement to The Hill, a CNN spokesperson called Variety’s reporting “reckless.”

“The story, filled with patently false anecdotes and no concrete evidence, is based entirely on unsourced, unsubstantiated, 15-year-old anonymous rumours,” the spokesperson said. “It’s amazing and disappointing that Variety would be so careless.”

Lemon’s comments about women have come under scrutiny in recent weeks after he was widely admonished by critics inside and outside the network for remarks he made about Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley shortly after he announced a bid for the White House.

“Nikki Haley is not here yet, sorry. A woman is considered to be in their prime in 20s and 30s and maybe 40s,” Lemon said on the air earlier this year, a quip that earned him an internal rebuke from network president Chris Licht and calls from women’s rights groups to have him fired. . .

“A woman’s age does not define her either personally or professionally,” Lemon wrote on Twitter as part of an apology for what was said about Haley. “I have countless women in my life who prove that every day.”