Don Lemon, long-time anchor at CNN, announced on Monday that he has been terminated from the network.

This news comes after allegations of mistreatment of female colleagues surfaced in a Variety article published earlier this month.

Lemon has also faced backlash for controversial on-air comments made earlier this year.

Lemon took to Twitter to share the news of his termination, expressing his shock and disappointment that he was not informed directly by CNN management. “After 17 years at CNN, I would have thought someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly,” he wrote.

CNN CEO Chris Licht confirmed the network’s decision to part ways with Lemon in a memo posted on CNN’s official communications Twitter account.

The statement thanked Lemon for his 17 years of contributions to the network and wished him well in his future endeavors.

Lemon joined CNN in 2006 after serving as an anchor at NBC Chicago and working as a correspondent for NBC News, the “TODAY” show, and “NBC Nightly News.”

His initial controversy began in February during a segment on “CNN This Morning” when he commented that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, aged 51, was no longer in her “prime.”

Lemon’s remarks came as he discussed Haley’s suggestion that candidates over the age of 75 should undergo mental competency exams.

Co-anchor Poppy Harlow challenged Lemon’s statement, to which he responded by telling her not to “shoot the messenger.”

CNN and Lemon allegedly “moved on” from the issue after Lemon agreed to participate in training, according to CEO Chris Licht.

However, a Variety report published on April 5th detailed allegations of Lemon’s long history of inappropriate behavior towards women at the network.

The article cited over a dozen anonymous current and former colleagues who described Lemon as openly hostile to female coworkers.

Lemon’s spokesperson issued a statement to NBC News following the Variety report, calling it “amazing and disappointing” that the publication would be “so reckless.”

The statement criticized the article for relying on “unsourced, unsubstantiated, 15-year-old anonymous gossip” and containing “patently false anecdotes.”

The termination of Don Lemon comes less than two years after the firing of former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. Cuomo, who hosted his own prime-time show on the network, was dismissed in December 2021 following an attorney general investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.