The lowest moment of Don Lemon’s reckoning came last year, when the contents of his office arrived at his house in Sag Harbor, N.Y. There it was: The sum total of 17 years at CNN, reduced to a pile of boxes stuffed with neckties, books, awards and pictures.
“You’d think it would be sort of nostalgic,” Lemon said during an interview at his dining room table. “But it was just, what am I going to do with all of this? And: It’s over. ”
Lemon has interviewed actors, Olympians and politicians. He’s reported from scenes of carnage and triumph. He’s been hounded by the paparazzi, heckled by former President Donald J. Trump and kicked to the curb by Elon Musk. He has wondered aloud whether it makes more sense to travel to an evening event by car or helicopter.
Much of Lemon’s life would be unimaginable to the average working person, but even those of us who pack the contents of our own desks are sympathetic to the discombobulation of losing a job. It can be sad. And lonely. And humbling, especially in midlife and under duress.
For Lemon, 58, it was all of the above, plus the glare of public scorn. In 2023 he was fired from CNN two months after speculating — live, on air — about whether Nikki Haley, a Republican presidential candidate (and former ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina), was “in her prime” at the age of 51.
The blowback was swift. Lemon was accused of sexism and ageism. Variety published an article titled, “Don Lemon’s Misogyny at CNN, Exposed.” Seemingly overnight, yet another stoker of the 24-hour news cycle had become its kindling.
“That was totally misconstrued,” Lemon said of his comment about Haley. He meant that the public at large might perceive her as a has-been; he, personally, did not. “Anyone who knows me knows,” Lemon said. “I came from a household of women, from a community of women who supported me my entire life.”
He went on, “It know sounds cliché, but my best friends are women.”
Lemon gets into the details in a new memoir, “I Once Was Lost,” coming out from Little, Brown on Sept. 10. The book started as an examination of religion in the United States — a coda to Lemon’s last book, “This Is the Fire,” which looked at race. But, as Lemon’s life unraveled, “I Once Was Lost” went in a more intimate direction, exploring his own crisis of faith alongside the country’s.
It also touches on the termination of Lemon’s partnership with X, which came less than a year after he lost his job at CNN.
Bruce Nichols, who was Lemon’s editor before leaving Little, Brown in February, described it as “a combination of memoir, personal experience, reporting and commentary. What’s the state of religion in America and why are we so divided over it? How can we get back to believing in ourselves, and believing in something higher than ourselves?”
Growing up in Louisiana, Lemon went to Baptist church and Catholic school. He heard the same message in both places: Homosexuality was a sin. “It made me feel like I shouldn’t exist,” he said. “That I was an abomination, that my life would have to be a secret, that I was not equal in God’s eyes.”
Nevertheless, Lemon cultivated his own sense of faith. “You pick what speaks to you,” he said. “I had to apply a lot of critical thinking, an open mind and an open heart.”
About a decade ago, Lemon noticed a proliferation of believers who were, as he put it, “trying to create a God in their image instead of trying to see God in other people.” They were using scripture as a weapon in politics, Lemon said: “It started with the Tea Party. It reached its crescendo with MAGA.”
In 2022, Lemon decided to write about this phenomenon. He planned to interview spiritual leaders and experts, to get a “how it started/how it’s going” perspective on Americans’ relationships with theology. The project would have a first-person angle — Lemon isn’t one to leave his personal experiences at the door — but the approach would be journalistic.
Then, Lemon writes, “the career I spent a lifetime building dissolved like a sugar cube in a cup of scalding hot coffee.”
He stopped working on the book. He struggled with depression. He stayed busy, even going so far as to make homemade laundry detergent and dog food.
For nearly two decades, Lemon said, he had been “at the nexus of every big story in the world.” Being cut off from all that was “a little weird.”
Last fall, Lemon and his collaborator, Joni Rodgers, returned to “I Once Was Lost.”
When they first worked together on “This Is the Fire,” George Floyd had just been murdered. The whole country was in a “crucible moment,” Rodgers said. “This time, Don was in a personal crucible moment. And if there’s one thing I know about Don Lemon, he’s great in a crucible.”
The writing process was intimate and cathartic, punctuated by moments of vulnerability. “Joni knows my life,” Lemon said. “I feel like I’m talking to my sister.”
Rodgers recalled an evening when she was on the phone with Lemon as he strolled up Park Avenue. Lemon ran into an acquaintance, whom he greeted warmly. On the other end of the line, Rodgers heard the man bark, “No, thank you.” He quickened his pace as Lemon called after him, “It’s Don Lemon.”
The acquaintance stopped, mortified and apologetic; he’d mistaken Lemon for a panhandler.
“I’m overhearing this whole thing and I had it on tape,” Rodgers said. When Lemon came back to the call, he picked up right where they’d left off. “I was like, Whoa, back up for a second. What just happened? He started talking to me from his heart.”
The incident became one of the most powerful passages in “I Once Was Lost.”
“There was no denying the dynamic here,” Lemon writes. “Black man. Hoodie. White guy. Park Avenue. It is what it is, and we both knew it.”
He continues, “What role has God played in the history of American racism? And how might God help us heal the disconnect between the brotherly love we preach and the pedestrian racism we practice? Walk with me.”
As the book took shape, so did Lemon’s future. He’s still under contract with CNN and will be for the next “couple of years,” he said, which limits his ability to take a position with another broadcast outlet.
Musk’s initial invitation to do a show on X wasn’t appealing to Lemon, but he came around to the idea that it was time to “take Twitter back from the trolls and troglodytes,” he writes. “(I mean X. I’m still trying to get used to it.)”
Lemon’s distribution deal gave X users early access to certain content and, he believed, provided a way to keep the electorate informed in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. “The best way to do that was to go to a place where everyone goes for news,” he said. “And everyone goes to Twitter for news.”
In an interview for the premiere episode of his new venture, “The Don Lemon Show,” Lemon pressed Musk about his ketamine use and handling of inflammatory posts on X. Musk, visibly uncomfortable, repeatedly reminded Lemon how much time was left in their conversation. When it was over, Musk ended the partnership — another public uncoupling for Lemon, who is suing over the canceled deal.
“I would not change anything about the interview,” Lemon said. “I went into it with the best of intentions. The outcome was the outcome. Am I happy about the way I was treated? No. Do I think it was fair? No. And I don’t think he believes in free speech.”
Lemon now hosts “The Don Lemon Show” on a YouTube channel with 236,000 subscribers. It also runs as a podcast. Recent segments include “Trump Rants! Will Debate Kamala!” (53,000 views) and “Kamala Poll Surge Stuns MAGA!” (102,000 views).
In “Candace Owens Goes Off!” (699,000 views), the conversation rolled around to gay marriage.
“It’s a sin,” said Owens, a right wing commentator.
“That’s not what the Bible says,” Lemon said, gazing calmly into the camera. “That’s just people using and interpreting scripture the way that they want to interpret it.”
There was no need for fancy graphics or sound effects. The point landed.
For the record, Lemon married his longtime partner, Tim Malone, in April. Their vows included their dogs, extra crispy Buffalo wings and a heaping portion of gratitude.
Lemon has a Ricki-Lake-like enthusiasm for exclamation points but his reconsideration of traditional broadcasting is serious. He mentioned the “sheen” of “Crossfire” and its ilk — “Candles! Glasses! Bookshelves! Discuss!” — and the makeup-heavy faces at round tables on CNN: “The women look like they’re going to cocktail parties, the men look like they’re going to church. Do you need all that?”
Lemon’s dream gig is “a show where people can actually let their hair down,” he said. “Graham Norton meets Bill Maher meets Wendy Williams. I like when people can be themselves.”
Most reporters don’t share opinions; “just the facts” is the Hippocratic oath of journalism. Lemon said, “When I was working in traditional media, I couldn’t say, I’m going to support Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Mitt Romney, or whoever it is I wanted to support. I can now, because I’m not representing 4,500 other people or a huge brand. It’s me. And that feels refreshing.”
He might rethink this approach in the future. But for now, Lemon said, “We’re at such a dangerous place, fueled by religious and political hypocrisy, that I think we need to be transparent.”
In June, Lemon covered the first presidential debate while on vacation, in what appeared to be a hotel room. (His audience was more than 100,000, he estimated, “bigger than the demo most nights on some cable news shows.”)
In July, when Trump questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’s racial identity, Lemon hosted a special edition of his show from an event for Black professionals. The segment had pandemic Zoom vibes — the lighting was off, the camera was shaky — but the conversation felt intimate, unguarded, even slightly vulnerable.
This erasing of lines is a hallmark of Lemon’s latest chapter.
“Before, I had two separate lives. I compartmentalized,” he said. “That was my work life and all my work stuff resided there. And this was my home life and all my home stuff resided here. Now my life is completely integrated, all of it.”
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