WHCD Host Roy Wood Jr Calls Out Media for ‘Weaponizing’ His Jokes About Don Lemon
Fresh from hosting the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Roy Wood Jr. stopped by The View to discuss — and the comedian said his Don Lemon jokes were twisted.
Wood said some people were “weaponizing” his jokes about the fired CNN This Morning host. Wood said those people failed to understand that he was also praising Lemon for representing “the beliefs and the viewpoints of a lot of marginalized communities.”
“He fought for that on air,” Wood said.
“The thing that I found most interesting on the other side of this was, you know, I was so worried about, you know, people on the right or whatever, taking a joke and using it to justify whatever they believe in,” Wood said.
Read his full comments here:
But what I also found in a weird way was, not only, like the being able to take a comedian’s joke to try and cancel them or to push an agenda, but also people taking a joke and weaponizing it, like, because the thing with Don Lemon for me, the thing I feel like everybody missed about the Don Lemon thing was that I was trying to say that, there is a man that, regardless of what he did off-camera, on-air he represented the beliefs and the viewpoints of a lot of marginalized communities, and he fought for that on air. And if he’s gone, I’m not sure if Charles Barkley is going to cover all of the boxes. And it’s not a dig at Charles.
But it was about making sure that there’s representation on the airways and it’s about making sure that we watch and see over the course of the election, how media companies replace the black faces that they get rid of and make sure that they represent those viewpoints still. And that was completely missed in the headlines. It was just, ‘You slammed Don Lemon!’ I’m like, okay, maybe, but also, comma, there’s more. So you know, the biggest thing I was scared of…It’s just I realized you can’t avoid it, that jokes are jokes, but people are going to take whatever they want from whatever they believe.
CNN recently hired Charles Barkley and Gayle King to fill a spot in its prime time lineup.
Wood hosted the Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday night, replacing The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, who hosted in 2022. Wood poked fun at Fox’s ouster of Tucker Carlson, then went for Lemon.
“Speaking of a**holes, Don Lemon is out of a job,” Wood said. “Don Lemon. My dog, Don Lemon. Don Lemon released a statement saying he got fired from CNN, then CNN released a statement saying that they offered Don a meeting. They had to part ways, because Don Lemon can’t even accurately report a story about Don Lemon.”
“Letting Don go was the wrong move,” Wood continued. “You shouldn’t have let him go, not this soon… You don’t fire your host after the first couple of scandals. The scandals got to stack up. You gotta get the ratings. Yes, Don Lemon was a diva and he said a couple of women were raggedy in the face. But that’s a promotion at Fox News!”
Fox News announced Carlson’s ouster last week, while Lemon tweeted about his own firing just minutes later. CNN called Lemon’s claims that he wasn’t personally told about the firing “inaccurate.”
