Another CNN Casualty: Poppy Harlow Officially Out at Network After Canceled Morning Show and Don Lemon Drama
CNN host Poppy Harlow announced this week that she was departing the network.
April 26 2024, Published 12:00 p.m. ET
CNN’s Poppy Harlow is departing the network just two months after her show, CNN This Morning was axed, RadarOnline.com can confirm.
The network’s newest CEO, Mark Thompson, reportedly announced Harlow’s departure during an editorial call at 9 AM on Friday.
Harlow confirmed her departure from CNN in an email to her network colleagues on Friday morning.
Harlow herself confirmed her departure from CNN in an email to her network colleagues issued shortly after.
“Mark, Amy and the CNN management team have been wonderful and have given me the space to make this decision,” Harlow, 41, wrote. “I am very grateful to them.”
“CNN gave me the opportunity to travel across this country and around the world – often at the worst of times, but when humanity also shows the best of itself,” she continued.
“There’s been plenty written about what’s wrong with journalism, and the challenges our industry faces. And it does,” the former CNN host wrote further. “But there is also so much right with it.”
Harlow’s exit from CNN came two months after the network abruptly canceled her and Phil Mattingly’s morning show, "CNN This Morning."
“At the heart of everything we do is the pursuit of truth – it is the core of CNN,” Harlow concluded her email. “I remain CNN’s biggest fan and I’ll be watching and cheering you on every day.”
As RadarOnline.com reported, Harlow’s sudden exit from CNN comes roughly two months after the network abruptly canceled her and Phil Mattingly’s morning show.
Thompson announced that the network decided to ditch CNN This Morning — and that the Harlow-Mattingly team would be disbanded – after the morning program struggled to compete against similar morning shows on rival networks like MSNBC and Fox News.
“We will no longer produce morning programming in New York and will be disbanding the team that currently produces CNN This Morning in that city,” CNN’s newest CEO announced in February.
The insider said execs 'are admitting they might have been hasty' about firing Cuomo.
Harlow reportedly shared a “secret meeting” with executives at NBC following her CNN Morning Show axing last month.
She was reportedly spotted at NBC's 30 Rock headquarters in March. Harlow was said to have met with members of NBC News leadership and the network's on-air talent.
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It is unclear whether the former CNN morning host discussed joining NBC during her meeting with the network’s execs last month. Harlow did not discuss her plans for the immediate future in her departure email on Friday morning.
Meanwhile, Harlow’s sudden CNN exit also came almost exactly one year after her former CNN This Morning colleague, Don Lemon, was axed from the network.
Harlow’s sudden CNN exit also came almost exactly one year after her former colleague, Don Lemon, was axed from the network.
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Harlow and Kaitlan Collins – who appeared on CNN This Morning before she was promoted to her own primetime show, The Source, in July 2023 – butted heads with Lemon before his departure from the network in April of last year.
Both Harlow and Collins appeared to turn their backs on Lemon during one particularly infamous CNN This Morning broadcast when Lemon mocked then-GOP primary candidate Nikki Haley’s age.
Lemon was pulled from the morning program shortly after and subsequently released from the network. Harlow and Collins paid their one-time co-host a short tribute after Lemon’s departure. They then continued business as usual.
"I wish him all good things ahead," Harlow said after Lemon was fired in April 2023.
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