‘You Will Always be My Morning Sunshine’: Robin Meade Signs Off for Final Time After CNN Guts HLN

Longtime HLN host Robin Meade thanked her staffers and audience as she signed off Monday for a final time after CNN announced layoffs that gutted the network.

Meade joined the network, which was then known as CNN Headline News, on Sept. 11, 2001. Morning Express with Robin Meade ran from 2005 until Monday morning when the host bid farewell to her audience and highlighted the contributions of those behind the cameras in her final moments.

“Doing this show with you has been the joy of my life,” she said to staffers. Meade added she hoped everyone landed “on their feet” with each losing their jobs.

“I wish I can make this change less scary,” she said. Meade then addressed the camera and her audience at home:

Maybe you’re at home or listening on the radio or you’re watching on the treadmill. Thank you for letting us start your day all these years. Thank you for letting this kid from a middle of a cornfield do something beyond her wildest dreams. You’re my first thought in the morning and my final thought before I fall asleep. I felt protective of you and I hope you felt like you had a guardian on patrol for you each morning.

“I’ve heard that you mourn something when it passes, either because you feel guilty for leaving something unresolved, or you mourn because you truly appreciate something for what it was,” she said. “The emotions this morning are of appreciation for you and for this 21-year run. You will always be my morning sunshine.”

Meade, a former Miss Ohio, began at HLN after local news stints in Florida, Illinois, and her native state of Ohio.

HLN will no longer produce live programming after CNN CEO Chris Licht announced last week the network would cut costs amid a sweeping round of layoffs that targetted top network contributors and others.

Watch above, via HLN.