Roy Wood Jr.: People completely missed point of Don Lemon jokes
White House Correspondents Dinner host and comedian Roy Wood Jr., criticized people on the right "weaponizing" his jokes regarding former CNN host Don Lemon.
Comedian Roy Wood Jr. claimed that people are "weaponizing" his jokes about former CNN Don Lemon and "completely missed" what he was trying to say as host of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
At the event on Saturday, Wood gave a monologue taking jabs at several high-profile figures, including Vice President Kamala Harris and former Vice President Mike Pence. The comedian also referenced CNN firing longtime host Don Lemon.
"Speaking of a**holes, Don Lemon is out of a job. Don Lemon. My dog, Don Lemon. Don Lemon released a statement saying he got fired from CNN, then CNN released a statement saying that they offered Don a meeting. They had to part ways, because Don Lemon can’t even accurately report a story about Don Lemon," Wood said in one joke.
He also scolded CNN for giving Lemon the boot too soon, saying, "You don’t fire your host after the first couple of scandals. The scandals got to stack up. You gotta get the ratings."
White House Correspondents Dinner host Roy Wood Jr. appeared on "The View." (ABC)
While appearing on ABC’s "The View" Monday, Wood claimed that his jokes about Lemon had been weaponized against him.
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"The thing that I found most interesting on the other side of this was, you know, I was so worried about, you know, people on the right or whatever, taking a joke and using it to justify whatever they believe in. But what I also found in a weird way was, not only, like, the being able to take a comedian’s joke to try and cancel them or to push an agenda, but also people taking a joke and weaponizing it," Wood said.
He insisted that the point of his jokes about Lemon was to draw attention to the former host’s efforts to represent "marginalized communities" in news stories.
CNN fired Don Lemon in late April following a series of on-air and off-air scandals. (CNN)
"The thing with Don Lemon for me, the thing I feel like everybody missed about the Don Lemon thing was that I was trying to say that, there is a man that, regardless of what he did off-camera, on-air he represented the beliefs and the viewpoints of a lot of marginalized communities, and he fought for that on air. And if he’s gone, I’m not sure if Charles Barkley is going to cover all of the boxes. And it’s not a dig at Charles," Wood said.
He continued, "But it was about making sure that there’s representation on the airways and it’s about making sure that we watch and see over the course of the election, how media companies replace the Black faces that they get rid of and make sure that they represent those viewpoints still. And that was completely missed in the headlines. It was just, ‘You slammed Don Lemon!’ I’m like, okay, maybe, but also, ‘comma,’ there’s more."
Lemon announced his own firing in a Twitter post on Apr. 24, attacking the network for not having the "decency" to inform him directly. CNN later pushed back against the claim, asserting that this statement was "inaccurate."
The annual White House Correspondents' Dinner raises money for WHCA scholarships and honors the recipients of the organization's journalism awards. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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"It’s just I realized you can’t avoid it, that jokes are jokes, but people are going to take whatever they want from whatever they believe," Wood concluded.
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