Don Lemon's Rumored Age-Gap Romance With A Coworker Raised Eyebrows At CNN

When former CNN anchor and now independent journalist Don Lemon was arrested on January 30, 2026 over accusations that he violated the FACE Act, the first thing viewers saw the next day was Lemon striding to a podium for a news conference hand-in-hand with husband Tim Malone. Malone, a New York realtor, is 18 years younger than Lemon. It's nearly the exact same age difference Lemon once had with another man, except that time, it wasn't so accepted.

A 2023 article from Variety detailed Lemon's rise and fall at CNN. Part of the fall had to do with Lemon's love life. It wasn't until 2011 that he came out as gay. Before this, he was not open to the public about his sexuality, but it wasn't a secret to those that knew him. Variety reported that, when Lemon was 41, he engaged in a relationship with a much-younger staffer, despite being his superior at CNN.

The recently graduated staffer was just 22, making him 19 years Lemon's junior. The controversial journalist seemingly didn't care about the optics of someone high up the ladder for the network, as one its most famous faces, dating date someone who was not only so young, but new to the company, because the couple even carpooled to work. As one senior executive summed it up, "As fast as you could make a rule, Don would bend it." However, this controversial relationship was only one example of how far Lemon would try to take things. 

Variety checked off a long list of allegations against Don Lemon during his time at CNN. He reportedly had several confrontations with his colleagues, most of who were women. The outlet wrote that he'd made concerning comments to Nancy Grace and Soledad O'Brien, and when Kyra Phillips earned a job reporting in Iraq that he wanted, Lemon ripped up items she kept at her workspace. He even went so far as to send her an anonymous text that read, "Now you've crossed the line, and you're going to pay for it." This led to Lemon being demoted.

One source told Variety that Lemon exhibited "diva-like behavior" due to his seeming apathy over job duties, and others shared that he reportedly expressed jealousy of colleague Anderson Cooper in at least one instance. An unnamed woman gave her opinion for why Lemon had changed, saying, "I saw a new Don emerging, and I didn't like the new Don. He likes celebrity. He likes fame, likes power. He was no longer the same person." 

The Variety piece was published on April 5, 2023, a few months after Lemon had already been in the news for how he'd reportedly treated CNN co-host Kaitlan Collins. The article was coming off the heels of him making ageist comments about then-presidential candidate Nikki Haley when he said she "isn't in her prime." The article showed just how many people disliked Lemon's actions, and 19 days later he was out of a job. A year after, in 2024, he and Tim Malone, eight years into a more appropriate relationship, were married.