Hey everyone, it's Sophia.

Welcome to Work in Progress.

Hi friends, welcome back to Work in Progress.

You're a resident journalism school.

Girly has a guest today that has me just so immensely excited.

Today, I'm going to sit down with Don Lemon.

He is an award winning journalist, a best selling author, and one of the most influential voices in American media.

I've always respected Don for his fearless storytelling.

He's covered pivotal historical moments and incredible shifts in society with such grace and such ethics.

He's pushed boundaries and delivered thought provoking conversations on everything from politics to culture to social issues.

And a few years ago he got clickbait canceled and has re invented his life and stood up for himself and who he is and what he believes in and managed to find incredible joy along the way.

And I want to talk to him about his career, his resilience, his love with his husband, his book, and his new show, The Don Lemon Show, which is available wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.

I absolutely love it.

I want to ask him what it's like to continue being who he is in all these new spaces, places and mediums, and of course we are going to talk about queer joy.

Let's dive in with Don Lemon.

Don, it's so nice to see you.

Good to see you, Sophia.

You look fantastic.

What are you doing?

I'm in love and happy.

I think, yeah, I hear, it's good for the skin.

I know I'm waiting for you though.

Oh, I know you're ready.

You want me to really pull the trigger.

I did last year.

It was last year, last year, a year in April.

Oh, congratulation, I know that.

Thank you.

I never thought i'd get married ever in a million.

Really, yeah, it was impossible for me.

It's really interesting.

Well that's that's oh.

I want to dig into that.

I will humorously say, because our listeners obviously I would imagine know all my things.

I've tried it and it didn't work out so great.

And then I thought maybe that's not for me.

And then you know, I had a big life revelation.

I was like, you never say never.

We'll see what.

Happened that revelation.

See what happens.

Why did you think you would never get married?

Was it just the legality?

Pre it was a legality.

And also it was you know, back in the day, I'm a little older than you.

You just didn't talk about those things.

You know.

It's always like a roommate, Oh, my roommate is going to come to Thanksgiving, and they're like, oh, Don's friend is coming.

Yeah, your best friend.

Yeah.

But I just thought it wouldn't be possible.

And then it was so weird because my mom walked me down the aisle and as soon as I've walked out, I didn't see her.

I walked out to meet her, and as soon as she looked at me, she started crying, and I started crying in the whole way down the aisle.

We were just balled.

I could not believe it.

But yeah, I thought it wouldn't be possible.

But you know, you never know, right, anything's possible.

That's really beautiful.

Thank you, And what what made you decide?

Last year was the time.

Well he proposed in twenty nineteen on his birthday.

I thought he was joking.

Oh he came into the bedroom.

You were his birthday present.

Yeah, I'm immediately.

No, I'm a sap.

That is so see, I don't have this is this is I have another ring that's in the it's being fixed, but I want I said, if I ever told him, I say, if I ever get married, I want a big diamond ring.

Anything comes in seriously and he's I'm in bed, and he said, oh, you know, we have to go get manicures.

And I said, okay, if your a birthday, we can do whatever you want.

We get a manny, petty whatever, and then go have breakfast.

And I said, okay, so I'm you know, I'm a late sleeper.

And so he walks in and the dogs are with him, and he gets down on one knee and then the dogs.

He goes read the dog collar and I said, what what?

And then I looked at the dog collar for both on both of our dogs, and it said it says, Daddy, will you marry Papa?

And I looked at him and I'm like, you're so crazy, and then his lips were trembling like and I went, oh, you're serious.

I started laughing at him.

I'm like, oh, you're serious.

And then he like opens up the things and this big ring and I'm like, holy, it was real.

And so anyway, I'm making a long story longer.

And then so COVID happened.

We started planning and COVID happened and it just sort of fell to the wayside, and we're like, you know, there are more important things in the world, not that this is not important, but we got like we were married already, yeah, and then we said, you know what he said, we're going to we have to make this official and we now want to do it.

We wanted to do it in a church.

We got married by the US Ambassador to the un like I want it legal and tir God and law and everything and family.

And so we did the whole traditional thing with the night before dinner and it was really really, really great and it does make a difference.

You feel different.

I'm so happy for you.

Yeah, So I can't wait for you.

So this is a really interesting through line because whenever I sit across from somebody, I think about what the world knows of you.

You know, your career, your profile, the people who follow your work, and I always like to know about who people were before they were a household name.

And the question I love to ask feels even more poignant understanding for your identity and mine.

Really, yeah, the shifts that have happened in our lifetime.

Yeah, because my question for my guests is always if you could bend the space time continuum and meet up with your younger self as a kid, I mean, eight, nine, ten year old don would you see yourself in him?

And when we think about this shift towards permission of full expression, do you think that little boy already knew?

No, really, I don't think he knew.

I think a couple of things.

I think that that little boy was kind of afraid, not kind of afraid, was afraid because I knew what I was.

I've I've always known what I was and not you know, kids don't know.

They're not sexualized in that way, right, but you know, like, oh, I had a crush on boys and all those things.

So the biggest thing for me, the biggest thing for me, obstacle that I had to overcome as a kid, was knowing that I was gay.

Everything else was, you know, just I was a child, It was just childhood.

I was living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and like just I think I had a storybook childhood, like being in the country, barefoot, hot as hell in the summer, muggy.

You could smell the tar, the tar on the roof would bubble, but you would just run around.

We would climb trees and do swings, you know, and go swimming in the lakes, and it was just really great.

But the other the only thing that was was a gay thing, and so I did not know, and so I sort of carried that what I thought was a stigma around for decades until, you know, until I was thirty.

I didn't come out until I was fifty years old.

No, I was like twenty.

Yeah, I was well in my forties twenty eleven.

I didn't come out publicly, and everyone my family and my friends knew, but I didn't tell the public until I wrote a book in twenty eleven.

So I don't think that I would just go and hug that child and tell him it's everything's going to be okay, or I would just smile and not say anything and just sort of look at him from a far and say, you're going to be okay.

I'm not going to worry about you because I know in the future you're going to be okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

As a kid, were you this fascinated with the world and eloquent?

Were you a bookworm?

I wasn't a bookworm, but I was always bright.

It's always clever.

I was smart enough that I didn't I could do my homework on the bus, just on the way to school, right, Yeah, I make.

All the other kids jealous and get an egg.

Yes, except for math, you know.

And it's weird because then later, once I applied myself to do math, I was like, math is not so hard.

You just have to sit down and like really do it.

But maybe I had some sort of I wonder if I had, you know, had ADHD or something as a kid, because it was hard to hold my attention, like everything in me.

Now, I was like, don't look at this phone.

And I know I don't really care what's on it, but you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, because once you're once you're in it, you're down the.

Rabbit and right you're down the rabbit hole.

Or like, you know, to look at that monitor, I'm like, way to set something on TV or like so that as a kid, I was always like, you know, you could easily distract me.

It was easily distractable.

Yeah, and so I think that's you know, and that's why I couldn't sit down and do math.

But yeah, I mean I I would.

Was I always eloquent?

You I was a good writer.

He was a good speaker.

I'm always curious if people like yourself see versions of themselves in there in the kids that they were.

You know, if if you even the fact that you can point out that you were always very well spoken, that you were a good writer.

You know, those things tracked to me in terms of how you wound up becoming such an amazing journalist, such an amazing advocate.

You know the I think it's neat to figure out where all your little seeds were planted along the way.

Yeah, but you don't.

It's hindsight.

Yeah, oh only only.

I mean I think about that in so many places spaces times in my life.

You know, when I was like white knuckling to try to get through something and then finally said what am I doing this for?

I can look back and say, oh, I knew two years before that I shouldn't have done that.

Or you know, now I think about science.

You know, this is my nerdy stuff.

I was like a space baby kid who always wanted to understand outer space.

And when I think about invisible string theory or theories of time.

You know now that I'm in love with the woman, I'm in love with I think I was always supposed to be with her, but I knew her for years and never saw it.

Like I didn't she was just my cool friend.

I didn't see it till I saw it.

And now looking back, I go, oh, maybe there was a reason that I always felt so comfortable around her.

Oh maybe there was a reason that we bonded over, you know, activism for women.

And then we're always on these chats together, or we'd always start a group chat with each other's number first if we needed to rally a bunch of people for a cause, like, oh yeah, But I didn't get it at all.

And then it sort of like smacked me in the face and I was like, oh, my pay attention, pay attention and mindful.

And in the moment, yeah, realize those things.

Yeah.

Well, and I think be, you know, be a little open to letting your life happen to you.

Yeah.

I don't know if there were I guess there were sign posts, but I wasn't.

I didn't know for sure, because you know, you're just not mature enough as a child, so you know, the little things that you worry about.

I guess it was always there.

The thing that I think that throws people off is when you try to be something for someone else, when you try to be someone else's version of yourself.

And so if I had just and I did, I went away from it for a while, but then there are always things push you back.

The universe will push you back, if you know, if you if you take the wrong course.

Yeah, and so I was like, I want to be I want to be a lawyer like my dad.

And so then I went and I said I'm gonna do economics and to do these things.

And I was like, I hated it.

And it wasn't until you asked me if I was curious.

I was always curious as a kid, always asking questions.

Like it's tough for me not to ask you questions.

Right now, I can have you ask any questions.

So, yeah, there was signposts, but I didn't know.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't know.

And just like you know, when you if you even when you're older, if you sort of if you change careers or you sort of move into a different aspect of your career, like you don't know, and you're you know, you're afraid of it.

But then it's always I think the universe is like a it's like a railroad track and always kind of guide you into where you're supposed to go, or like bumper cars.

Yes so sometimes so I've been smashed by a bumper card too.

But that's really interesting that you say that I had a similar thing.

I always thought I wanted to be a doctor, wanted to be a hard surgeon.

That was going to be my thing.

And then I had an arts requirement in school and I had to do a play.

And then I realized plays where books come to life, and English was my favorite subject, and maybe theater would be cool.

And then I decided I wanted to go to theater school.

You can imagine how well that went over in my home.

My parents were like, what what?

Medical school?

Plays?

What?

And then I went to theater school.

And it felt to me at the time, I think, you know, being eighteen and being in this very expansive phase in life, I felt really reduced by the fact that I was only studying one thing.

And so I transferred into the journalism school at USC.

Yeah, and.

It was the balance I needed, because how to find and tell a story and how to honor the people whose stories you were telling in the real world made me viscerally a better actor.

And then everybody was saying, oh, well, you've transferred into the journalism school, so you want to be a news anchor.

And I was like, I don't think so.

I think I still want to be an actor, but maybe eventually i'd want to be a news anchor.

And this didn't exist yet, podcasting didn't exist yet, and now I get to do both.

You know, it's my favorite thing, do.

You know it's weird.

I took an acting class you did, and it really helped me.

It helped my journalism.

It helped me as a broadcasting because the acting coach said, just go with it, like, just be in the moment and go with it, and don't be afraid to silence because it's very powerful.

And I said, yeah, you know, you're right.

And I started watching all of the really great and not necessarily news broadcasters are the worst.

They hate dead air, but actors and some radio folks, right, they don't hate dead air because they know that there's a power there.

And so I'd start watching folks like that and I'm like, you know, they're right, and so I would take pauses.

You know, it's not strategically, but I was just slow down on the air, and then just whatever I was feeling, I would, you know, I would look at what's on the script or what was written, or what was on the teleprompter, and I could, you know what, let me just level with you guys for a minute.

I don't know what's going on.

This is the thing, craziest thing that I've ever seen, nothing like this in my years.

And you know, on Earth is whatever.

And I would just start talking to the audience and then boom, you know, primetime show blah blah blah, because I was being a human And sometimes I'm too much of a human on the air and it gets me in trouble.

But you know it's okay.

I think that's why we like each other.

Yeah, yeah, I am.

I have been told versions of the same.

You can't be so vulnerable, you can't be so open, you can't be so political.

Yeah, yeah, I disagree.

I think we need more of that now.

I think we need people, especially in this moment.

We need people to stand up and not be afraid of.

And I want to be in the marrow of it.

Yeah.

I want to be where we're connected and cellular and together and human, not performing you know, in a student.

I hate that now.

Yeah, I'm so happy where I am Now.

I hate it, like with all of the makeup and the Okay, this God, I love.

I love like sitting in my home studio and talking to people and having them like relate and having them love me being in the home studio.

Yes, we'll be back in just a minute.

But here's a word from our sponsors.

Okay, I want to talk to you about this because and I'm going to be vulnerable with you.

I'm going to tell you a couple of things.

You know, when we first met years ago in DC, I was like, oh my god, done knows me, Like I just was so I was like, he is so cool.

I can't believe this.

You said something so sweet to me.

We were all in like, you know, our fancy dress for the correspondence dinner.

And then when your whole observational moment i'll call it, happened on the air at CNN.

I remember doing the thing I always encourage people not to do.

I saw the headline and I went, what the fam I was like, even him, and I was so bummed about it.

And then I checked myself and I watched it and I went, you are making a systemic observation about the way our world functions, and you are calling out this inappropriate agism that a woman is participating in when she knows what it feels like not only as a woman in her midlife, but as she also knows what it feels like to be a woman of color, no matter what she changes her name to.

And you're pointing this out as a man in your midlife who is also a man of color, who is also a publicly outman, and you're talking about the intersection of how judgment is but you got clipped and click baited.

Everybody put and judged their judgment on me, And yeah.

I it was a moment that reminded me, even in myself, don't get mad when you see the headline because the headline's trying to make you mad.

Investigate.

You're a trained journalist, you know this.

And I said as much to someone I tend to as an activist.

Get a lot of feedback, you know how that feels.

And there were quite a few people that were like, can't believe you still follow this person and using the misogyny term a lot.

And I don't respond to strangers on the internet.

I'm not insane.

And one person just really got under my skin, and I did, and I said a version of what I said to you, and I was like, here's what the full scope of the story is.

We should be relieved that a man is advocating for us this way on the internet, and we bought this clickbait hook line an embarrassing sinker.

And it was like a very cool moment because I later got a response from this woman who said, I went and watch the interview.

I'm also ashamed of myself.

Yeah, and I just I tell you all of that because I don't want to hide that.

I was also a bit of a judgmental all that day.

It's okay, though, but I'm used to it.

I looked, how did that feel in the moment, because clearly the clipped quote became the runaway train.

Yeah, well, how did you.

Process that in the world, but also just in yourself.

Well, it couldn't be what people were thinking.

Could be further away from who I am, especially as the only boy in a family of all women, and I know what women have to deal with.

And during that interview, I said, I'm not saying I believe that no one writes that, no one.

I'm not saying I believe that, but and there were other things going on at CNN that you know what sure, you know.

Oh gee, drama behind the scenes and never know anything about.

That all behind the scenes, and competition and know that kind of thing.

And so I just it was tough because at first I was like, wait, I'm not you guys understand what I'm saying, don't you?

And They're like, well, no, you just it sounds this way, And I said, but that I'm telling you what I'm saying, And basically I'm tryd I was trying to make the point that you were making and standing up for older people because you're being agists.

Why are you doing this when you know how society has treated you and sees you, yes, as a woman, and so anyways, and then so the thing is is that I know her.

She took the bait and she used it in her and raised money off of it.

And I was, well, yeah, wow, I've seen quite a few people take.

A lie, yeah and turn it into.

Flip it and she knows benefit.

She she could have called me and said, hey, what were you saying.

Yeah, I've had that happen too, Yeah, and did not.

And did not do it.

But it was, so, how did it.

Feel someone can ride the wave to get the kind of press they've never gotten before.

Yeah.

I think it takes a person who's very in a practice of therapy or whatever or else divest them from their ego not to take that bait, and clearly she was not.

But it was also the universe telling me I didn't need to be there anymore.

Yeah, that it was time for me to move on, and that not that you're bigger than any one company, but sometimes you are.

Sometimes what you need to do is bigger than what you're doing in that place.

I also think and listen, I left a job once, and it's unheard of for an actor to quit a job.

And I quit a job, people were like, what are you doing?

And it could have been a place I stayed forever and that I benefited from.

But what I hear and what makes me feel seen, and what you are willing to discuss with the public about this stuff, is that sometimes you have to know you are worth more than whatever room you've made it into, that who you are is more meaningful than what you do or where you do it.

And I think sometimes whether you get the sign and you know you went through being pushed out of an environment.

I went through leaving an environment.

But the thing I think we both share is that our jobs lost us.

Yeah.

And when you said that about reflecting on your experience, I was like, that is the confidence I want to walk through the world in because it is scary to make a change in any way, and you chose to stick to who you are and you made a change and you look happier.

Like you said to me when you walked in here.

You were like, girl, you look good.

I was like, I'm happy.

Yeah.

But it also doesn't mean.

It doesn't mean that the new place that you're in it's not challenging, that it's not tough.

But I don't know, I'm just happier and lighter.

And they have to deal with the politics of it, and you know, hanging onto something that people just hang on to because they think it's the best thing for them and they'll never do anything else, or none of that is true or real.

It is.

That's you know, the devil is a.

Liar, well, and fear is a liar.

Fear is a liar.

That's what I mean by the devil.

Fear is a liar.

With the shift for you the new career path that's very much more in your own control.

How do you grapple with this stuff?

How do you figure out how to talk about it?

How do you do what we're doing, which is be as real and honest as possible and also leave people with some hope.

Well, I don't have to self edit anymore.

I don't have to worry, like, say more about that.

Well, when I was on CNN, I have to self edit everything because I represented forty five hundred other people or so in the company, right, and I represented a brand, a major brand, okay news brand company, And so I would say, is this going to get me in trouble?

How is this?

You know this is going to end up?

Like this is all going through your mind?

What are they going to say about this on Fox News?

How is you know?

How are the conservative how's the conservative media going to spin this?

And what are my bosses going to think?

And someone's going to think I'm too left, or someone's going to think I'm too right, or someone's.

Going to say I'm being too soft in the center.

Yeah, yeah, all of that, right, And so I don't have to do that now.

So I believe that the thing that will win out in the end, Like I believe the folks who are going to carry us through aren't the politicians.

It's going to be the artists that are going to help us to get on the other side and the pendulum to swing back in the right direction.

And I think the folks who are independent journalists who just sort of speak the truth and speak their minds and don't necessarily put a governor on, like, oh, I got to slow down and whatever I say what I want.

If I screw up, I say, you know what, I really didn't mean that.

I apologize that was wrong.

And that's how human beings treat each.

Other, modeling humanity.

Yeah, and so I don't let my critics define me.

I no longer do that, but a lot of folks who are in traditional media do that.

So and then I offer people hope because my saying is old people be knowing.

So I've gone through this something similar to this a number of times, not as much as my mom, who is eighty who lived through a lot of different administrations and has seen a lot of change in the world.

I've seen a lot of change in the world, and I know when we go through tumultuous times like this when there's so much gyration in everything in the stock market and politics and everything, there's something on the other side that it is getting us too that is much calmer, much more effective, and much simpler.

Progress is not just straight linear or doesn't just go straight up right, It's jagged.

Yeah.

Right.

When people say one step forward, two steps back, yeah, well, sometimes it's one step forward and sometimes it's four steps back.

But then eventually you do move forward.

And so I believe, I do believe in my heart of hearts that something good will come out of this.

And so it's like I think, unless we start to really tell it like it is within our own communities and across communities, so we can coalition build cause like I need your men to show up for us.

You and I need all the people out there in hetero relationships to show up for us.

Because when they turned over Dobbs and then said they wanted to come for Oberfels, and then Clarence Thomas had the nerve to say loving should be re examined, I'm like, bro, the ultimate rules for thee but not for me.

How is this freedom?

What are we talking about.

And coming for us?

Wherever they say we're going to send it back to the states.

That means they're coming for you if.

If your rights change state to state on a road trip, there is no America period, end of story, right, Like, that's just it.

You don't have rights if they change state to state.

And that is so crazy to me that we haven't settled this as a being.

Yes, as humans, there's no debate, But I think that we haven't settled it because again I hate to keep you know, dumping on the media, but it's because they normalize these things.

That's what I wanted to ask you about.

They normalize these things, and it's false equivalence.

Why are we having a conversation about whether Donald Trump is taking a plane from the Qataris if that is legal period period?

So why do you have someone on arguing that, well, it's you know, with the statue of liberty.

It's like that is the dumbest that I've ever heard.

Why are we doing this?

And they're doing it about everything, everything, about everything, But they don't have the person who is either a centrist or a liberal.

They don't promote those people and they don't allow them to be able to like, you know, do their thing as they do with the crazy maga conservative.

Okay, can I ask you a question because I think I know the answer, but you know you don't work for a news network anymore, so you can confirm or deny.

Are they eroding truth, fact and the law because the outrage and the clickbait of the what about ism on the both sides pattern they're falling into is good for their ratings in their pockets.

The answer is yes, very simply, it's good for it.

And also the person who is in Washington, in the White House right now, has huge sway over what business gets handled in Washington, what gets FCC approval, and what businesses can get be merged or acquisitioned in all of those things, and they don't want that messed up.

They want their deals, their business deals to go through.

So they don't want to piss off the Trump administration or Donald Trump or he'll say I'm doing that, and he did it.

He does.

He's punitive, he doesn't abide by the law.

He is punitive.

But he did it once and I was I lived through it.

You know, old people be known.

I lived through it when at and T and Time Warner merged and Donald Trump tried to stop it as a matter of fact, he delayed it for a long time, and then I guess, you know, after a while they had no choice but to go through because they jumped through all the hoops.

But they don't want that to happen again, and so they're just going to get rid of the person who is that mouthy person who's downstairs at the anchor desk.

Are going to go get rid of them?

Yeah, or they're going to say we're going to settle.

Are they going to get rid of the head of news as you know what's happening, or they're going to get rid of the person who is over this particular program, or they're going to you know, fire some news anchor settled settle a lawsuit that they would probably win in court because they just don't make waves.

But to bend the knee in advance is to seed hard won rights for people.

So what do you think now.

You're a profession that's protected into the First Amendment?

Exactly, these supposed First Amendment people, It's like so embarrassing how sensitive they are.

Aside from the fact that it's deeply illegal to be behaving like this, I'm also just like y'all call us snowflakes.

You could never you can never handle my DMS.

You'd be crying in the corner having a panic attack, you losers.

Who's it?

I heard that said that you call us snowflakes, but yet you are triggered by a rainbow T shirt on all thirteen in Target.

It's like, really give me a break.

And now for our sponsors, I will say something that really made me giggle when you know, I realized who I was so madly in love with a bunch of people.

You see this every year, right for Pride.

People who like the rainbow T Shirt's not going to make your kid gay, but and they like plug in some one's performance, and somebody did like but so Via Bush and John Tucker mus dies, so Via Bush and Easy and now so Via Bush and her World Cup winning girlfriend Will And I just was like, honestly, it's been my honor to serve for the last twenty years.

Guys, thank you so much.

I'm thrilled about it.

We need the join, Like you know, it's like people are just gonna be who they are.

What's so crazy to me is that in a world that is so hard, yeah, for a lot of people, anybody's mad about people being in love, Like we're so cute with our people.

Yeah, Like it's crazy to me that anyone is bothered.

And it's been crazy to me my whole life again, because I grew up where I grew up.

I grew up around artists.

Can I tell you something.

We talk about this all the time, especially after the pandemic.

We know so many heterosexual couples, married couples, yeah called it quits.

Every single gay couple we know still together, all together doing surrogacy.

I want to have kids, sending their kids to the best school, sacrificing things so that their kids can have the best.

And you know for couples that well, you know, if you want to have a kid, okay, let's go in there and do it.

But for me, you know, you got to work in order to have a kid.

Right.

But but you know, I don't know that much about your life, but I see your social media and I know you're you know your partner, and you have a cute, beautiful life.

My husband and I we drive an SUV.

We have three dogs.

They're always in our social media.

We love to cook for people.

We put our meals and stuff online.

We spend lots of time with our family.

We're at family graduations a couple of week.

I mean, we are just normal people in our lives are probably more boring than our head at our sex old friends.

Well, one of my favorite things when they started saying they wanted to threaten marriage equality, one of like the sassiest, yummiest, you know, old people know things like old people be knowing, come on, you know, but you know I need to know.

I need to know what lines of the songs I can sing and what I can't.

Like, I'm not trying to be ridiculous, but like one of my like gorgeous, sassy elder gays was like, oh what the straight people don't want us all to have a chance to be as miserable as they.

And I was like, listen, I mean I love that.

My straight friends are like, what do you guys?

Why do you want to get married?

What is wrong with you?

You guys are crazy?

And we're like, well, you're like, I don't know, I really like him.

Hey guess what.

Well, and I always look at him and I go tax breaks, Hey, you guys are getting the tax benefits and we're not.

That bart Yeah, and we didn't have for the guys are getting the socialism and yes, and we're not.

For the longest time, I was paying for you know, the kids, and I still am paying for your kids to go to school and.

Happily and happily by the way, it's all good.

We should again.

You want to live in a society and not in like Joshua Tree off the grid, Yeah, contribute That might be fun though, I mean, I wouldn't hate it.

I do.

I spend a lot of time alone in the woods now because I like it a lot.

The joy makes me so happy and I'm not It's not lost on me because you mentioned it earlier.

You know, you didn't publicly come out till twenty eleven.

Yeah, you decided to do it in your book.

How did you decide how to do it?

And why did the book feel like the way?

It was weird because I didn't think about it that much.

I think sometimes you just can't think of you We overthink things a lot.

So I was writing a book about my journeys in journalism and you know, sort of sort of a memoir.

This is an autobiography.

I was way too young for that and not you know, necessarily did not have a big enough name to be able to do that, but it was I guess big enough for the New York Times and other folks.

It up because the only people out, the only person on Network News that was out at that time was Rachel Maddow.

Wow.

And then so I just started writing the book.

And then I came to the part where I moved to New York City and I said, well, if I leave this out, then how do I'm not really being honest about it, and I won't feel really good about myself.

And am I going to look back on this and say that I missed an opportunity or that it was not authentic.

It was inauthentic.

And I said, you know what, I just have to be honest.

I said, I moved to New York City one because you know of the racism, and two I wanted to be who I wanted to be.

I would never have been able to be myself if had I stayed there.

And I wanted to be out.

I was gay, and I didn't think I could do it.

I could be out in Louisiana and I went to a city that would accept me.

So and I just wrote about it, and it was literally, I don't know, maybe on a page or two pages, and that was it in the book.

And that's like the biggest thing that people pay.

The biggest headline, well the biggest.

Headline, and that sold the book.

And yeah, I mean folks who are like, holy crap, Don Lemon is gay and other people were like yeah, and water is wet, but no one had come out, No one had come out.

And Rachel Maddow like sent me flowers and she was like the first person and she's like, you know this is this is going to be good for you, and it really was good for me.

I just think getting to be your whole self is everything.

Yeah, you know it is.

And to your point, like, in whatever way the personal life sells the thing.

I wish I'd been able to do it in a book because everybody else made money off my news story but me.

But I was sort of like, why is everyone so fascinated with people's personal lives and not their careers, their volunteer work.

They're things the news wants what's sexy, right, And for me, what was so surreal was to see the the confluence of that tendency and also the misogyny I thought I experienced it growing up on teen television in the early aughts, like it could get any worse.

And then I was like, it was really bad.

It was really really bad.

Look at what happened to Britney Spears.

No, Honestly, the fact that like, I'm not in the corner chewing my hair is a miracle is a sentence my best friend says to me at least once a week.

But the by the way, not to say that she is.

See look how nervous we get.

I'm like, oh my god, I mean that about me, not about her.

I love her anyway.

At what happened with When you think about how she was treated by the industry, that's what we're talking about.

Yeah, we're taking up for her, yes exactly.

I just wanted to clarify we're traumatized, but it you know, it was so interesting to me to see how much worse it could be when they could do it to two women, and when they got this gleeful thing like they were outing me, and I was like, oh, you want me to be freaked out.

All I'm going to do since you've decided to take this from me is go everywhere with her.

I'm going to make out with her everywhere to the point of your nausea, because you'll be like, Okay, it's enough, and I'm like cameras around or not.

I actually had a friend call me and go, were you at Penn Station on Tuesday night?

And I was like yeah, and she said, my friend saw you and was like, I saw this couple just like kissing.

It looked like a scene from a movie.

They looked so in love, like waiting for the trains to come on the board, and they pulled apart, and I realized it was your friend Sophia and her girlfriend.

And I was like, oh my god, I give someone New York City room call me.

But it's like I remember thinking to myself, Oh, if you think you're going to make me hide, I'm going to be the most loud and proud human because I love her and I'm the happiest I've ever been with her.

And I don't know.

It's it's so surreal to see that, to see that two pages of your book became the whole headline.

But in a way, I wonder if it's because so many people need it.

Oh, I wonder realize that.

I wonder if we give people permission.

Yeah, But I realized that I mean, think about that was Think about how long ago that was, yeah, right, Yeah, and we have moved here, Yeah, we have moved into like we've we've got the advances that we have made over the last what fourteen years or so, it's been incredible.

I mean, look at marriage equality.

There was no marriage equality when I came out, and I wanted to ask you this because I was worried.

One of the big things is that I was going to lose my career, that my company would fire me, or you know, just because you know people aren't watching you, don the ratings are showing we got to get you out of here, right, or people would just reject me.

Was that a concern for you?

No, not at all.

And this is the inverse.

So I will say, I believe I can't obviously say what it's like to be a man of color in the media, but I know if I'm just looking at gender, like, women get treated so much worse than men about their love lives, their careers, everything, their age, everything.

But where the misogyny flips for us is men think it's pretty hot when two women are kissing.

Yeah, yeah, I was going to say that to you.

If people see you kissing on a platform, like some guys whoa and if they see me they may throw a beer can at me.

And you never know.

And by the way, there's some of that for us as well.

Yeah, for sure, homophobia is very real.

But I think what was really interesting for me was to go, oh, you'll treat me so much worse, but you'll also kind of get off on it, which feels really icky.

But also, you know, early Outsmax and Vaccine, I've had to deal with that.

I think some of the guys are good too.

I mean the stuff that I've learned lately about Oh no, all the.

Guys who like hide who they are.

I'm like, you would just be so cute if you were out.

But that's for another day.

I'm not rushing anyone else.

But I think what's really interesting for me as well.

And again I don't know that I realized it at the time, but I never shied away from playing any kind of woman, a bisexual woman, a straight woman, a queer woman.

I've never not taken the job that I liked because of who my character was involved with.

So you know, I was kissing girls in the third movie I ever did, and I have in and out of jobs for my whole career, and so it never it wasn't really a worry for me because I'd never been given the message you did this movie or you did this TV show, don't do that again.

I never got that.

I have had some people, again, folks a little older than me, who I think are used to the industry as it has been, not necessarily where it's going, say to me, like, you might want to tone it down a little bit, like be happy, but you don't have to go everywhere together.

And I'm like, oh, I'm about to become such a pain in your ass.

I'm going to go every were like on her back?

Hey someone said that to me?

Did they?

Yeah, your husband is everywhere with you and I and I showed them pictures of straight couples and I'm you know, such and such are always the other.

I said, you guys have little cute names for them like benefer and you know whatever, and it's just so, what is that?

What's the difference?

And That's what I think people don't quite realize when people say, oh, well, what are kids going to think if there's two princes kissing in a Disney movie?

Someday?

I'm like, well, They've seen the Prince and the princess kiss in every movie ever, and no one talks about it.

No one's ever not asked a kid how their mom and dad are doing.

It's okay to say, how are your moms like it, It's okay to include people.

You're not losing anything.

You've just always had everything.

And I think for me, having been in on both sides of the relationship spectrum, I'm like, so, if this relationship is the best one I've ever been and you want me to talk about it left no.

And this whole thing, this whole indoctrination thing, like, well, this is indoctrination.

And I said, you know what, I grew up in the South, uh huh, going to Catholic school and a Southern Baptist missionary Baptist church.

And I said, if that wasn't indoctrination, wouldn't you think if indoctrination was real, that would have made me a heterosexual?

And they're like, if people could change who they are, we'd literally all be the same.

Yeah, that would just be it.

And why do you care?

Though I know, I know, why does it matter?

Do you think looking back, coming out finding the love of your life, being married, shifting into your own show that is completely in your control as this is in mind, so we can say and all the other words that we were talking about earlier, like do you just feel in your life more and more yourself more and more free?

I do.

I mean I felt that way for a while, but now even more so.

Yeah, because it's all me, I don't have to worry about anybody else.

I don't have to worry about the boss and even advertisers.

I get to pick the advertisers we do.

I love it, right, and I get to pick them, and I get to I'm like, you want me to, you know, say hey, you need to buy such and such and such and such, send me a sample if I like it.

I'm not going to lie.

I'm not going to lie.

And so I don't have to worry about Oh my god, I'm going to piss off some advertiser.

It's like, if you don't want to advertise on my show?

Yeah, I love it?

Is that really happy for you?

I'm so glad we met.

This is crazy.

We know each other.

Well now, we know each other better.

We only met like we met at the White House Correspondence.

But what you on my show.

Didn't you come on the show for a doc or something you were doing?

No.

The embarrassing thing is, at this point, I can't remember same Like if I can look up a day or a photo, I go, oh, and it was for this, Oh and you were wearing that.

It immediately comes back.

But now it's like cut all of it's a little bit of a blur.

Maybe, but I don't remember.

People say, you know, I was on your show for such and such and such, and I can't remember.

But the thing is is that what they don't realize is that when I was on for two hours a night for a long time, and I would just sit in the chair and they would shuffle guests in a house, and so I'd go, Okay, what guess is this?

And maybe can't remember?

Yeah, I have a thing, and I wonder if you do too.

I know this is from acting, because my job is to memorize ten pages of information and all the subtext about the emotions, and then throw it away the next day and do it again so it'll be gone and I'll be like, give me a where were we?

What was that?

And the minute it jogs my memory, the whole scene is back and I'm like, oh, yeah, we were in Austin at the Proper Hotel and you had on a purple sweater.

Oh my god.

And I was eating that club sandwich.

God, that was good.

I wish I could have another one.

And people are like, oh, okay, rain Man, but it's back.

And I would imagine you have a version of that where you can be like, oh my god, it was the night of this and this crazy thing had happened, and we were running down the halls to get on the air to do the breaking news or whatever.

You need something to jog your memory, Yeah, how do you remember?

Because I had the best.

I would remember when I was in kid, when I was a kid, and I would remember the entire school play.

Oh yeah, and everybody's part.

Oh, I know everybody's lines.

And now I'm like, give me that again.

And maybe it's because I'm so used to notes and teleprompters or had.

Been, but yeah, I also think it's different muscles.

And I think you have to remember that the thing you did for three months when you were sixteen was one quarter of one sixteenth of your life.

Right now in your fifties, when you're doing fifteen four minute segments, a night.

It's like it's a blip on the radar.

It's like, what even is that?

So it's harder to remember, but I do think the memories are in there.

No, But I mean, how do you memorize the lines I watched?

I went to watch.

I spend a lot of time with them.

You do, and for me particularly.

You know, as an actor, you do a lot of adr, so a lot of sound looping when the picture gets locked to make all the sound perfect with the engineers.

So I learn dialogue like I learned songs.

So I learned the rhythm of a scene, and then it can change with my scene partner.

But when I get the rhythm of it down, it's like I find the music and then I don't forget it like you will.

You will never catch me and not able to remember all my favorite hip hop from the nineties because like, the rhythm of it right is like in me yeah, And so it's it's a similar journey as an actor.

And funnily enough, the other night I was at an event and this country song from nineteen ninety nine came on and my as I was a dancer in high school and my senior project because I had focused a lot on like hip hop and jazz, was to study country music in the history of line dancing, so there were like five country songs.

We learned these dances too, and one of them came on the other night at an event and I was like, I know every word to this Brooks and Done song.

What's happening to me?

And all my friends were like, who are you?

Who is this woman?

And I was like, listen, I couldn't have picked it out of a lineup, but playing I know this, and I will not line dance for you because I'm out of practice, but like I remember a couple of steps.

Still, we are absolutely overtime, and I want to be respectful of your day.

And I just looked at the clock and I'm mortified.

But I'm having the best time.

So I'm going to skip ahead because really we've talked about all these things.

I didn't need the I didn't really need it.

But I want to ask you my last and favorite question, which, especially given this conversation, feels like so momentarily topical for you.

Everything seems and feels across this table great as you're in this moment in your life and you look forward and you think about what you want to do and where you want to go.

What feels like you're work in progress right now?

Ah well, I mean, you know, one would think I would say, you know, my show and my career, but I really think it's home and family.

Like I need to I try to work on being more present, and you know, I sit there and I go, oh my god, this is I go from appointment to appointments and I have one in ten minutes right that I'm late for it.

That's okay, that's okay.

But I go from one thing to the next, and then I have to take those little moments and sit there and go.

You know what, if I were working in you know, a traditional or old school media, if I would do whatever, I would not be able to sit here and spend all this time with my little dogs who only get such a small portion of our lives, who are only here for such a small portion of our lives.

Or I'll say, I would not be able to plan a dinner with my husban.

And so I want, I need to.

I want to lean more into that because you know, as a man of a certain age who never thought that they'd be able to get married, that he would be or I would be able to get married.

I think that is perhaps the reason that I have been thrust in this position now, is to lean more into my life and not necessarily like, oh what am I going to do for a career that all manages somehow to take care of itself.

Yeah.

Yeah, because you can.

You can quit a job.

But more than more often than not, people quit relationships and when they should, you know, when it was not necessary for them to be able to do it because they didn't work on it enough.

Right.

Yeah.

I think when you love your life, you want to lean into it.

Being present, that's it.

That's it, and listening more.

That's my work in progress.

M I love that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

It was a real pleasure.

Thank you for