Don Lemon Announces His CNN Show Is Ending: ‘Changes Are Coming’

CNN Tonight With Don Lemon (Credit: CNN)

Don Lemon stunned CNN viewers on Friday night by announcing his primetime news show would not be returning.

“Earlier I told you I had an announcement and I do,” Lemon said at the end of the show. “It’s been really, really great. This is the last night that we’ll be CNN Tonight With Don Lemon. I appreciate all the years of CNN Tonight With Don Lemon, but changes are coming and I will fill you in.”

After viewers began to burn up social media with questions about where he was going, Lemon posted a video on Twitter saying he’s not leaving the cable network.

Related Story: Brooke Baldwin Announces Exit From CNN After 13 Years

“So I got back down to my office after the show — everybody calm down. I didn’t say I was leaving CNN, I just said it’s the end of an era,” he explained. “I’m not leaving CNN, you will have to tune in Monday at ten o’clock to see. That’s it, so relax,” he said in a video uploaded to Twitter late Friday. His comments appeared to tease some type of new role at the network.

Lemon, 55, joined CNN as a correspondent in 2006. He was later promoted and began anchoring CNN Tonight in 2014.

His announcement about changes came just weeks after longtime CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin departed the network.

As previously reported, Baldwin announced she was leaving CNN in April, and said she didn’t know what her next move would be.

“No, I don’t have a job I am jumping right into, and yes, yes I am feeling very vulnerable,” Baldwin said. “But what is it Brené Brown says? Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change, and I am so excited about what is to come.”