Don Lemon blasted Megyn Kelly on his show Monday, calling the former Fox News personality a “racist” after she applauded Joy Reid’s firing.
“Let me just say to Megyn Kelly, in my 30 some years as a journalist, and my 50 some years as a person of color, go f–k yourself,” Lemon said as he drank from a “Megyn Kelly Today” mug, a dig at her daytime NBC talk show that was taken off the air in 2018 after one year.
A representative for Kelly did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
News broke Sunday night that Reid’s MSNBC show “ReidOut” had been abruptly canceled, and Kelly took to her eponymous podcast to celebrate.
“I’m thrilled she’s gone. She literally was the most racist person on television,” Kelly said about Reid, who is black. “But we won’t have her to kick around anymore, there’s a little sadness in that.”
“Good riddance to the absolute worst person on television, and shame on NBC for letting it go on this long,” she added in a social media post.
Lemon responded with a 20-minute segment on his YouTube show torching Kelly, accusing her of sexist and racist behavior.
“The worst person? No, Megyn Kelly! The worst person on television was fired from NBC and the ‘Today’ show a few years ago, and that’s Megyn Kelly,” Lemon added. “So hurrah for that, NBC did something good with that.”
The former CNN anchor said he does not like to speak about Kelly because she has built “her career on being a troll.”
He showed viewers the results from a Google search for the phrase “megyn kelly calls out,” which turned around a slew of articles showing Kelly bad-mouthing everyone from Prince Harry and Meghan, actor Selena Gomez and basketball player Caitlin Clark to the first responders in Los Angeles.
Lemon argued that the stories largely showed Kelly slamming other famous women.
He also played a clip of Kelly calling CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins “boring” and a “cold-hearted bitch” as proof of her sexist behavior.
“You are supposed to be supportive of women and I would never call a woman a [bitch],” Lemon said, using the letter “B” instead.
Lemon faced his own sexism scandal in 2023, when he argued during CNN’s morning show that then-presidential candidate Nikki Haley was past “her prime” at age 51.
“When a woman is considered to be in her prime — in her 20s, 30s and maybe her 40s,” he added.
His colleagues pointed out that he was citing the prime for a woman’s childbearing years, not a run for presidency.
Later that day, he tweeted: “The reference I made to a woman’s ‘prime’ this morning was inartful and irrelevant, as colleagues and loved ones have pointed out, and I regret it.”
On Monday, Lemon also argued that Kelly has a history of racism, playing clips from her 2018 apology as an NBC host after she defended the use of blackface in Halloween costumes during a live segment.
“Had she learned from that she wouldn’t spend almost every day being a racist,” Lemon said.
He also played clips of Kelly on Fox News in 2013 arguing that Jesus and Santa Claus were definitively white.