CNN’s New Day Weekend Anchor Christi Paul Gives Emotional Farewell for Her Last Episode: ‘I Just Could Not Be Who I Needed to Be For My Family’

CNN’s New Day weekend anchor Christi Paul bid an emotional farewell to her colleagues and audience Sunday morning, on her last day on air before she returns home to a new gig in Ohio.

At the end of the 7:00 am ET hour, the show aired a retrospective of Paul’s time at the cable network and messages from several of her coworkers, including her former co-anchor Victor Blackwell and her current one, Boris Sanchez.

Paul then addressed her viewers, saying she was “part of the Great Resignation,” deciding to step back from the high-profile — but highly-demanding — weekend anchor role.

Her husband had Covid-19 in 2020, she explained. “It was really bad for about three-and-a-half weeks, and there were moments I thought I was going to be a single mom,” she said, especially when he had to go to the ER. She thanked Dr. Sanjay Gupta for his support during those difficulties.

The experience of his illness and being separated from their parents during the pandemic made her and her husband reevaluate their priorities, she continued, saying they had “looked at each other and thought what are we doing? We have got to get back home.”

She promised to share the details of her new job soon on her Instagram account later this week, and got emotional as she shared how she much she loved working on New Day, but how the show’s schedule affected her family:

I love these people. I love this place. I am so grateful and I’m so tired. I’m so exhausted. We’re up between 1:00 and 2:00 every Saturday and Sunday. And I just could not be who I needed to be for my family, is what it really came down to.

I was tired of being tired and…let’s be honest, the work we do is important, the work you do is important, wherever you go, whatever you do, every day, it is important work, but at the end of the day, somebody’s going to sit in the seat and I’m going to leave and the show will go on as it should.

But nobody else is going to be my kids’ mom. And nobody else is going to be my husband’s wife or my parents’ children, and I need to be fully present there.

Paul effusively praised her CNN colleagues, “the people in these buildings, in D.C., in New York, here in Atlanta, all over the world,” as “some of the smartest, kindest, most thoughtful, most talented people on the planet” and “genuinely good, loving human beings” who were “making a difference.”

“The show will go on,” said Sanchez, “but it will not be the same without you, Christi. Thank you so much.”

“Thank you, guys,” she said, and offered her common sign-off: “Go make good memories! I mean that!”

Watch the video above, via CNN.