An extensive new report from Variety alleges extensive inappropriate behavior by CNN host Don Lemon, including accusations that Lemon anonymously sent menacing texts to a colleague.
According to the report, in the late 2000s Lemon harbored resentment toward his CNN Live From cohost Kyra Phillips, especially after Phillips was chosen for an assignment in Iraq that he had hoped to be sent on. Two sources who spoke with Variety said that he reacted to the news first “by tearing up pictures and notes on top of and inside Phillips’ desk in the news pod they shared” and later by threatening her:
When she [Phillips] 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. A human resources investigation was launched, and while the findings were never disclosed to the growing pool of staffers who were aware of the situation, Lemon was abruptly pulled from his co-anchor duties with Phillips and moved to the weekends.
Phillips declined to comment on the allegations to Variety, while a CNN spokesman said that the “Don says the incident never occurred and that he was never notified of any investigation. CNN cannot corroborate the alleged events from 15 years ago.”
The report includes a number of shocking claims made by former coworkers, with many centered around Lemon’s treatment of women.
In one instance, Lemon is alleged to have called a female producer fat. In another he mocked Nancy Grace on air. In yet another, he allegedly suggested that Soledad O’Brien, who was chosen to host CNN’s Black in America docuseries over Lemon, wasn’t really black.
CNN responded to that last allegation by asserting that “Don, Soledad, and others, have in the past correctly referred to her Afro-Cuban heritage as it is a unique part of her personal story. But Don denies making any related remark in a derogatory way.”
The story follows Lemon’s February comment that 51-year-old presidential candidate Nikki Haley is past her “prime,” which drew criticism from voices across the political spectrum, as well as sustained, palpable on-air tension between Lemon and his CNN This Morning cohosts, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins.
One former friend and colleague told Variety that Lemon is not the “same person” he became after achieving stardom. “He likes celebrity. He likes fame, likes power.”
In a statement delivered to Mediaite on behalf of Lemon, a spokesperson strenuously denied wrongdoing.
“The story, which is riddled with patently false anecdotes and no concrete evidence, is entirely based on unsourced, unsubstantiated, 15-year-old anonymous gossip,” they said. “It’s amazing and disappointing that Variety would be so reckless.”
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