(Headline USA) Ousted CNN host Don Lemon will reportedly receive a $24.5 million payout from the network as part of a settlement reached nearly a year after his firing.
The payout equals the amount Lemon would have been paid had he stayed on with CNN through the end of his contract, which did not expire for another three-and-a-half years at the time of his firing, according to The Wrap.
Lemon was fired last April by then-CEO Chris Licht, who was later axed himself after the leftist outlet’s staff and on-air talent revolted following a town hall with former President Donald Trump.
Lemon was forced out after making several controversial remarks on air, including one about GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley being past her “prime,” and another to then-GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy about Ramaswamy’s minority status.
Having already been exiled from a prime-time slot to the network’s morning show due to his incendiary comments, Lemon also was reported to have behind-the-scenes friction with his two female cohosts
Despite the red flags, Lemon—who often invoked his black and gay identity on the air—claimed he was blindsided by his ouster and said Licht didn’t address it with him directly.
“I am stunned after 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have the decency to tell me directly,” Lemon wrote on social media at the time. “At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at play.”
Lemon plans to return to media with his own Twitter-based show, which he said will be “bigger, bolder, and freer.”
“The Don Lemon Show” will purportedly prioritize honest debate and discussion without “hall monitors,” Lemon said.
“It will be available to everyone, easily, whenever and wherever you want it, streaming on the platforms where the conversations are happening,” he added.
Breaking with leftist orthodoxy, Lemon celebrated Twitter—renamed “X” by new owner Elon Musk—as the “biggest space for free speech in the world.”
Lemon’s change of tune comes just a few months after he blasted CNN—in response to the Trump town hall—for platforming “liars and bigots and insurrectionists and election deniers and putting them on the same footing as people who are telling the truth, people who are fighting for what’s right, people who are abiding by the Constitution.”
