Don Lemon Launches New CNN Show ‘Don Lemon Tonight’

Don Lemon Tonight debuted on Monday, May 17, 2021. (Credit: CNN)

Three days after telling viewers his longtime primetime show was ending, Don Lemon debuted a new program Monday night on CNN.

The new series titled Don Lemon Tonight opened with the longtime CNN anchor saying, “We may have a new name, but we have the same mission and a renewed commitment to that mission, to have the kinds of conversations America needs to move ahead as a country.”

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The episode included a conversation about “cancel culture.”

The premiere came after Lemon stunned viewers on Friday night when he announced his long time show CNN Tonight With Don Lemon would not be returning. Concerned fans took that as a sign he was leaving CNN. Later that night, Lemon posted a video on Twitter clarifying his comments and urging viewers to “calm down.”

“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 in the video. “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.