I rarely, if ever, witness people littering.") (2) Finish school. ("I’ve lived in several predominantly white neighborhoods in my life. He then addressed "black people" with his own list of solutions: (5) Pull up your pants. This was shortly after the George Zimmerman trial, and rather than lash out at O’Reilly, Lemon claimed that he hadn’t gone far enough. He was anchoring the weekend desk, and he played a clip of that bastion of modernity and multicultural wisdom, Bill O’Reilly, explaining everything that’s wrong in the black community. until, mercifully, he wasn’t.Īs far as I can tell, the great Don Lemon gaffe-spotting fest that has become such an Internet phenomenon and journalistic pastime began on July 27, 2013, and it began not with a gaffe but with an unexpected rant about racial mores. His ratings are pretty close to Anderson Cooper’s numbers at 8 P.M., and they have already eclipsed those of Piers Morgan, who was on at 9 P.M. This affable bluntness might help explain why he is so ascendant at CNN. He is focused when we talk, never strays for a minute once, when I pivot away from a topic, he suggests that I might have ADD. He’s an exceptional listener, my meandering questions returned in the complete sentences of a newsman who knows the power of a sound bite. Throughout our interview, Lemon, 49, is smiley and gregarious and energetic, alert but mostly expressionless, which probably comes from years of having to listen to people say crazy things on-air. I smile, not quite understanding the joke. He leans in, big warm smile, not wanting to correct me, but needing to: "Sorbette," he says, like a news anchor. I look up and down the menu and suggest that the sorbet looks promising, given his totally understandable criteria. The negotiation: He’ll do it, but it’ll have to be light. But he relents, because Don Lemon is not the kind of guy who will make you eat dessert alone. But he still needs persuading, since it is a known thing that dessert is one of the principal sacrifices of people who regularly appear on TV. We are at the restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art, and the portions are modern-art-sized, and he just had his photo shoot yesterday-he’d suspended all manner of salt and other bloateries in the days leading up to it and would love to cut loose a little. We’ve been here awhile, eating lunch, and we’re having a good time, so likable is Don Lemon, so open is he to my questions, so warm is his smile. It consumed my life."įox News reported that neither CNN nor Lemon responded to a request for comment on the pending litigation.So I say to Don Lemon, I say, let’s do it, Don Lemon, let’s have dessert. "I've grown a new respect for people dealing with mental health issues because stress, depression, anxiety, those are all very serious things. "I'm not doing this for notoriety or fame, I'm doing this because I'm standing up for myself and what I believe in," Hice told Fox News at the time. Hice in 2020 told the outlet that Lemon's purported "vile, disgusting, lewd, and inhumane" behavior would be taken far more seriously if Hice were a woman. Hice told Fox News Digital that the suit continues and that, despite a lengthy discovery process, it could end up in court around January 2022. In 2019, the New York Post reported that a source close to Lemon told them that the plaintiff in the lawsuit demanded $1.5 million before filing the complaint. Lemon in response to the initial compliant denied all wrongdoing and said that Hice's lawsuit was "frivolous."