Don Lemon Going On Apology Tour After Making Sexist Comment About Women Over 40
When life throws you Don Lemons, you make… sexist comments? CNN anchor Don Lemon, perhaps the most popular anchor on the network, is having to apologize today after claiming women are no longer in their prime after their 40s.
Lemon made the comment during a Thursday discussion on CNN This Morning about former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s presidential candidacy.
When declaring her run for the presidency, Haley called for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75.
This didn’t sit well with Lemon. He warned that Haley shouldn’t be talking about age, because she’s a woman, and according to “Google” women are no longer in their prime once they hit 50.
Lemon attempted to support his argument by saying that a woman is only ‘considered to be in their prime in 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.’ The comments were met with pushback from co-anchors Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins, but Lemon kept advancing his argument, even doubling down on it in a segment in the following hour.
Not a good look for Lemon. You could see how shocked his co-anchors were. According to TMZ, Lemon jumped on a CNN staff call Friday morning to apologize for his comments.
Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ … Don jumped on for only 90 seconds to address what he said about Nikki Haley and, for that matter, all women. He said he didn’t mean what he said, adding he’s going to continue to fight discrimination against women. He essentially said some of his best friends are women, citing his relationships with Dana Bash, Erin Burnett, Amy Entelis, and his mom and sister.
Oh no. He pulled out the, “I have women best friends” card. You know things are bad when you have to pull out that card.
Sources say people on the call were not impressed. They called Don “tone deaf” and said it almost seemed like he was giving himself kudos for owning his mistake.
Lemon had a scheduled day off on Friday, Feb. 17, so he probably won’t be back on air until Monday. It’ll be interesting to see if he addresses the comments again.
