Don Lemon, the former prime time host of CNN has finally agreed a deal to separate with the network.
Sources exclusively tell TheWrap that Lemon, 57, has agreed a separation deal with CNN for approximately $24.5 million, which would be the full complete pay from his final contract which extended 3.5 years from his ousting, TheWrap is told.
Lemon got in the crosshairs with CNN brass when he moved from his popular primetime show to the mornings, alongside hosts Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow. He startled his female colleagues with his implication that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, at age 51, was past her prime.
Things got sour for Lemon when he said, “Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime, sorry,” Lemon explained why he was “uncomfortable” with the age discussion. “When a woman is considered to be in her prime — in her 20s, 30s and maybe her 40s.”
The network dismissed Lemon after his show, in what he described as a termination. “It is clear that there are some larger issues at play,” Lemon wrote on social media.
He said that he was “stunned” by the news and was informed by his agent. “I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly,” he said, while under the tenure of former embattled CNN chief Chris Licht, who was fired months later.
“CNN, the strategy and their content and the direction they wanted to go in, I was not a part of that,” Lemon later said in a conversation with Kara Swisher.
“They did not want me to be a part of that, and I think that has, from what has played out publicly as it relates to CNN, as it relates to management, and what they’re doing now, I think that it’s obvious that they didn’t want me to be a part of that.”
Now Lemon is preparing to launch a new show on Elon Musk’s X platform on March 11. The new program, “The Don Lemon Show,” will allow him to be “bigger, bolder, freer,” Lemon said in a posting.
The show “will be available to everyone, easily, whenever and wherever you want it, streaming on the platforms where conversations are happening….This is just the beginning so stay tuned.”
Reps for Lemon immediately get back to us. His attorney, Bryan Freedman, did not comment.
A CNN spokesperson said, “While we never comment on specifics of any employee contract, this story is incorrect.”
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