(Headline USA) CNN’s Don Lemon has a history of misogynistic and diva-like behavior in the workplace, according to a bombshell expose published by Variety this week.
Lemon came under fire last month for sexist comments he made about GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, whom he described as “not in her prime.” But according to Variety, this is far from the only example of Lemon making inappropriate comments about women. He has allegedly called a female producer fat to her face, accused colleague Soledad O’Brien of not being black and sent colleague Kyra Phillips a menacing text threatening her, the report said.
“There was a time when it appeared that black people were most often the subject of his ire. Now, it seems to me that when he says something offensive, there’s almost always a woman on the other side,” Goldie Taylor, a former CNN consultant, told Variety. “I’m never surprised when Don gets in trouble.”
In one example, Lemon reportedly grew frustrated with Phillips after she was given an assignment to cover the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in 2008. He was so jealous of Phillips’s assignment that he ripped up pictures of her and left them on her desk, two sources said. She later received a threatening text message that CNN executives allegedly later traced back to Lemon.
“Now you’ve crossed the line, and you’re going to pay for it,” the text message said.
CNN conducted an investigation into the text and removed Lemon from his co-anchoring duties alongside Phillips and demoted him to weekends.
Around the same time, Lemon allegedly mocked former CNN anchor Nancy Grace by mimicking her on air.
“That was the beginning of when you knew that Don was kind of volatile and didn’t say good things about women,” one person who reportedly witnessed the incident said.
Lemon also went after O’Brien after she landed a gig hosting CNN’s Black in America docu-series in 2008. During an editorial call with dozens of staffers, Lemon suggested that O’Brien is not actually black, two witnesses said.
“Don has long had a habit of saying idiotic and inaccurate things, so it sounds pretty on brand for him,” O’Brien said, noting that she herself was not on the call.
Lemon has denied all of the allegations in Variety’s report.
