Ex-CNN host Don Lemon thinks former “Today” host Matt Lauer can come back after his 2017 sexual assault allegation scandal.
“Whenever I see Matt out and about or even with if we go out to dinner – my husband and I go out to dinner with him and his fiancée – people love him,” Lemon said on the “Hollywood Raw” podcast Wednesday. “Women love him. They’re like, ‘Man – oh, my God – can I get a picture? I love you. I miss you on television. Blah blah blah.’”
He added, “I think the public loves him, the public misses him, but it’s just the – it’s the people inside the business who are afraid.”
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Lemon suggested that if “canceling is over” thanks to the new “Trump era,” there could be a chance that Lauer will return to the news.
‘I’ll put it this way,” Lemon said. “I think the general public would accept Matt back, and I think people would watch him. And I think the ratings would be great.”
He also complimented Lauer, saying, “Let me say this – there are certain people who are meant to do what they are doing. Do you know what I mean? Who are just really, really good at it.”
“I think that if he could come back to digital, he can set his own course,” Lemon added.
Lauer was fired from his job as “Today” host in 2017 amid the height of the #MeToo movement after an employee claimed he took part in “inappropriate sexual behavior” with her at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
Almost two years later, a book by Ronan Farrow contained graphic rape allegations by his accuser. Lauer denied the allegations and insisted the sexual acts were mutual.
“It is alleged that an extramarital, but consensual, sexual encounter I have previously admitted having, was in fact an assault. It is categorically false, ignores the facts, and defies common sense,” Lauer wrote.
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“I had an extramarital affair with [a colleague] in 2014. It began when she came to my hotel room very late one night in Sochi, Russia. We engaged in a variety of sexual acts… each act was mutual and completely consensual,” Lauer added.
Lemon himself was also accused of sexual assault in 2019. However, his accuser later retracted his story in 2022 after claiming he had misremembered the events of the night.
A bombshell Variety report in April 2023 also claimed that Lemon sent threatening text messages to a colleague and repeatedly exhibited misogynistic behavior at work. Though CNN defended him and claimed the report was “riddled with patently false anecdotes,” Lemon was fired later that same month.
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