Don Lemon Biography
Don Lemon (Donald Carlton Lemon) an American award-winning television journalist and author, who works as a reporter/anchor at CNN Tonight, and airs weeknights at 10 p.m. He as well serves as a correspondent across CNN/U.S. programming.
Don Lemon Age
Lemon was born on March 1, 1966, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States of America.
Don Lemon Career
Prior to joining Cnn, Lemon served as a co-anchor for the 5 p.m. newscast for NBC5 News in Chicago, where he joined in August 2003 as an anchor/reporter, after working in New York as the network’s correspondent, The Today Show and NBC Nightly News.
He has as well anchored on Weekend Today and programs on MSNBC and NBC’s owned and operated station, WMAQ-TV, were he earned three Emy-awards for his local reporting. While at NBC, he covered the explosion of Space Shuttle Columbia, SARS in Canada, and many other stories of national and global importance.
In addition to his career, Lemon has also worked as a weekend news anchor for WBRC, Birmingham, Alabama, and WCAU— an NBC affiliate located in Philadephia, Pennsylvania, where he was a general assignment reporter. He was also an Investigative reporter for KTVI-TV, St. Louis as well as an anchor for WBRC-TV.
Don Lemon CNN
Lemon joined CNN in September 2006. He has been outspoken in his work at CNN criticizing the state of cable news and questioning the network publicly. He has also voiced strong opinions on ways that the African-American community can improve their lives.
Lemon anchored CNN’s breaking news coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Arab Spring, the death of Osama Bin Laden as well as Joplin tornado.
Lemon also reported from Chicago in the days leading up to the 2008 presidential election, including an interview with the-then Rep. Rahm Emanuel on the day that he accepted the position of Chief of staff for President-elect Barack Obama.
He as well interviewed the 106-year old voter, Anne Cooper President-elect Obama highlighted in his election night acceptance speech after he had seen Lemon’s interview with Cooper on CNN.
His famous breaking news stories include the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse, Hurricane Gustav in Louisiana, of 2008, the death of the famous American musicians, Michael Jackson, and Whitney Houston in the Inaugral of the 44th President in Washington D.C.
The Colorado theatre shooting and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, both of 2012. In 2013, he reported on the George Zimmerman trial, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the Philadephia building collapse.
He also brought breaking news of other years, including the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody (2014), the shooting of an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, of the same year, Charleston church shooting (2015), the Orlando shooting at the Pulse Nightclub (2016), Las Vegas shooting (2017) and the 2018 Hurricane Florence.
Lemon reported for the network’s documentary Race and Rage: The Beating of Rodney King, which aired 20 years to the day of the beating. He also has his segment, “No Talking Points”, where he holds politicians and public officials accountable.
However, in 2017, he received death threats laced with racial slurs; he filed a police report detailing the incident. In a much-reported broadcast in January the following year, 2018, Lemon introduced his broadcast with, “This is CNN Tonight, I’m Don Lemon, The President of the United States is racist.”
His outspoken criticism of the Trump administration and accusations of racism against President Trump has made Lemon a target of Trump and white supremacists.
In November that same year, Lemon received attention stating that homegrown white supremacists were a bigger threat to the country than immigrants.
Don Lemon CNN Salary
Lemon earns a yealy salary range of $37,311 to $144,282.
Don Lemon Net Worth
Lemon has an estimated net worth of about $3 million USD.
Don Lemon Awards and Achievements
Lemon earned the 2002 Edward R. Murrow Award for his coverage of the capture of the D.C area sniper, and other awards for reports on Hurricane Katrina.
He also earned three Chicago/Midwest Emmy Awards in 2006, one was for a business feature about Craiglist real estate listings, “Life on Craiglist,” and two for his report for HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, Journey to Africa, while reporting for WMAQ-TV in Chicago.
In 2009, Ebony magazine voted for Lemon as one of the 150 most influential African-Americans, and in 2014 Advocate listed him as one of the publication’s 50 Most Influential LGBTQ People in Media, and of Course being named in the list of the worst journalists of the year for several reporting gaffes throughout the year, by David Uberti of the Columbia Journalism Review.
He as well honored in the year 2016, with a Native Son Award—named after James Balwin‘s Notes of a Native Son (1955), recognizing and to “encouraging the increased visibility and impact of black gay men in society”
In 2017, Out named him on its Power 50 list of “the most influential LGBTQ people in the USA.” In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village, New York, an event widely considered a watershed moment in the modern LGBTQ rights movement, Queerty named him one of the Pride50 “trailblazing individuals who actively ensure society remains moving towards equality, acceptance, and dignity for all queer people”.
Don Lemon Height and Weight
Lemon stands tall at a height of 6 feet 0 inches (1.83 meters) and weighs 174 lbs (79 Kg).
Don Lemon Education
He joined Baker High School public high school in the town of Baker in East Baton Rouge Parish. He then joined Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, New York, and studied journalism where he majored in broadcast journalism. He as well serves on the Board of Trustees there.
He then joined Louisiana State University where he worked as a news assistant at WNYW in New York City.
Don Lemon Family
Lemon was born to Katherine Lemon Clark. His father Richardson, played a positive role in Lemon’s young life. His great-grandfather was of French descent, in addition to Nigerian, Cameroonian, and Congolese ancestry.
Don Lemon Siblings
Lemon was raise up along with together with his sisters, Yma and Leisa, grew up in West Baton Rouge and Port Allen, where they lived with their mother and grandmother until 1976 when their mother married Lemon’s step-father.
Back in January 31, 2018, his sister, L’Tanya “Leisa” Lemon Grimes passed away at the age of 58, after drowning in a pond while fishing and the police concluded that Tanya’s death was accidental.
He became absent from work for a few weeks, and after he showed up, he began his show on Feb. 6th, by thanking everyone who wished him “prayers and words of encouragement”—including the talk show host and political commentator, Sean Patrick Hannity, who was amongst the first people to call him during those difficult times.
Don Lemon Wife
Don was rumored to be secretly married to actress Stephanie Ortiz. In September 2010, in an on-air interview with members of Bishop Eddie Long‘s congregation, Lemon opened up to discuss him being sexually molested when he was five/six by a neighbor teenage boy, and he decided to keep it a secret until he was thirty when he told his mother about it. According to him, he has known his sexuality since that time.
It is for this that he wrote his memoir, Transparent in 2011, and publicly came out as gay—having being out in his personal life and with close colleagues—becoming “one of the few openly gay black men in broadcasting.”
He as well discussed colorist in the black community and the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. He decided to dedicate the book to Tyler Clementi, a college student who took his own life after his roommate outed him online.
He is currently in a relationship with , Tim Malone, a real estate agent. The duo first met in 2017, after which they began dating. During the 2018 new Year eve, Lemon went on to disclose his private relationship with his boyfriend, Tim Malone which seemed to have materialized so fast just after a year.
While they were singing and having fun during the live featuring, he called his boyfriend to join in the interview where they shared a warm kiss and later told him, ” I love you baby!” which cleared the air that he was dating him. In April 2019, they announced that they were engaged.