Soledad O’Brien Throws Shade at ‘Drunk Anchorman’ Don Lemon Over New Year’s Eve Antics
On New Year’s Day, former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien commented on both the Sopan Deb/Joe Scarborough Twitter fight and ex-colleague Don Lemon’s antics while hosting a live New Year’s Eve CNN broadcast from New Orleans.
Regarding the JoeScar/Deb battle over Scarborough’s appearance at Mar-a-Lago, which also pulled in CNN’s Chris Cuomo and the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman at points, O’Brien lamented the media “catfights” continuing into 2017.
One day into 2017 and we're continuing the @MSNBC vs @CNN now @CBS and sorta #@NYT reporter catfights! Happy New Year, everybody! https://t.co/BCUh0JYS7a
— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) January 2, 2017
She then turned to Lemon, hitting him for being “drunk” during the broadcast and getting his ear pierced on live TV.
A drunk anchorman got his ear pierced live on tv last night. It's a very low bar for credibility. https://t.co/EheJVwv4Ee
— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) January 2, 2017
It was noted by this site that Lemon had his mic cut live on the air, with speculation being that it was due to his commenting about how bad a year 2016 was. He also shared drinks with bar attendees during live segments, pouring shots of tequila for revelers.
However, while Lemon was definitely having fun on air and cutting loose, his on-air drunkenness may have been overstated. As reported here, a high-level source said Lemon’s mic was cut off due to the loudness of the bar and too much background noise. Also, according to sources at the scene, Lemon did not drink during breaks and only tossed back the ones we saw on live TV.
Over the past few months, O’Brien has been quite critical of her former network. In November, she used her Twitter account to take aim at a couple of employees — Jeffrey Lord and Christiane Amanpour. She also used a return appearance on CNN in September to hammer the network for giving white supremacists airtime.
[image via screengrab]
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