We Loved Seeing CNN’s Don Lemon Get Drunk and Kiss His Boyfriend Live on New Year’s Eve

While Andy Cohen was busy having a miserable New Year’s Eve with Anderson Cooper, the other CNN anchors were having a blast. Randi Kaye lit bongs for marijuana smokers in Colorado and openly gay anchor Don Lemon kissed his boyfriend on live TV in New Orleans — take that 2018! The Don Lemon kiss started off our year right.

You may remember that Lemon got lit last New Year’s Eve — he got drunk early, got his ear pierced and then declared “2016 is awful” before admitting that he wanted a relationship and to be less self-centered in 2017.

We’re not sure how self-centered he is now, but he at least got a boyfriend, as shown in the video clip below. After ringing in 2018 with co-host Brooke Baldwin, she and Lemon waved over two men to join them on-camera.

Lemon said to one of the men, “I love you, baby,” kissed him and then said, “Happy New Year.” Shortly after, he looked at his boyfriend and said, “You look very handsome,” and then tugged at his blazer.

It was quick, understated and lovely.

Watch the Don Lemon kiss from New Year’s Eve below:

Lemon met his boyfriend, Tim Malone, in 2017 in New York City, in case you’re wondering.

Lemon came out in his 2011 memoir Transparent. In a New York Times interview he gave around the book’s release, he said that being black and gay made him “a double minority,” and added that in black culture, “You’re taught you have to be a man; you have to be masculine,” and that “you can pray the gay away.”

The CNN anchor and author is one of the most visible LGBT journalists of color on television, and he brings the intersectional aspects of his identity when reporting on issues of race, identity and sexuality. He’s also a proud member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. We named him as a possible replacement for Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today.