He anchored weekend news programs on local television stations in Alabama and Pennsylvania during his early days as a journalist.

He also received three regional Emmy Awards for his special report on real estate in Chicago and a business feature on Craigslist.

[5] Lemon was born March 1, 1966, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the son of Katherine Marie (Bouligney) and Wilmon Lee Richardson.

[6][7] His father was a prominent attorney whose firm was party to a lawsuit that successfully challenged racial segregation of public transportation in Baton Rouge.

[8][9] Lemon has stated he was sexually molested as a child by a teenage boy who lived nearby,[10] and that he knew he was gay prior to this incident.

[10] Early in his career, Lemon reported as a weekend news anchor for WBRC in Birmingham, Alabama, and for WCAU in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Following the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Lemon began to host a special, nightly program featuring discussion and analysis of the event by aviation experts.

[20][21][22] In May 2021, it was announced that Lemon, along with fellow CNN journalist Chris Cuomo, would launch a podcast named The Handoff centering around "politics and personal".

[27] On September 15, 2022, it was announced that Lemon would co-anchor a new CNN morning show with Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow later in the year.

[31] In January 2018, after Trump controversially referred to countries such as El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras as "shitholes" during a meeting on immigration, Lemon opened CNN Tonight with a proclamation that "The president of the United States is racist.

Lemon's remarks were criticized by conservative figures, who felt that it was "race baiting" and contradicted his suggestion that Americans should not "demonize any one group or any one ethnicity."

It was revealed during court testimony that Lemon had sent Smollett messages informing him that the Chicago Police Department did not believe his account of what had happened on the night in question.

[43] In April 2023, Variety published a report alleging that Lemon had a history of misogynistic behavior towards his colleagues, including Soledad O'Brien, Kyra Phillips and Nancy Grace, dating back to 2008.

[44][45] A spokesperson for Lemon denied the allegations, saying, "The story, which is riddled with patently false anecdotes and no concrete evidence, is entirely based on unsourced, unsubstantiated, 15-year-old anonymous gossip.

[48] According to The New York Times, CNN had experienced difficulty in booking guests willing to appear on-air with Lemon, and polls had shown his popularity among viewers had declined.

The interview covered topics such as lawsuits filed by and against Musk, his usage of drugs, his political leanings, and his perspective on immigration and the Great Replacement theory.

"[61] In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village, New York, an event widely considered a watershed moment in the modern LGBTQ rights movement, Queerty named him one of the Pride50 "trailblazing individuals who actively ensure society remains moving towards equality, acceptance and dignity for all queer people".