Don Lemon was in the headlines most recently when Elon Musk summarily fired him from his new X show after a tough interview, but the former CNN host was all smiles marrying his longtime love, real estate broker Tim Malone, at a ceremony in Manhattan on Saturday.
“I wanted to get married in the church. So Tim made that happen," Lemon told PEOPLE Magazine. The couple wore custom suits and exchanged custom- made rings in the ceremony officiated by UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
The Advocate noted the crowd was a whose-who of Hollywood and media celebrities, including Tamron Hall, Clive Davis, Joy Behar and Ana Navarro-Cárdenas, former Today Show anchor Matt Lauer.
Lauer was fired from his extremely lucrative job when he was outed in the Me Too era for boorish behavior and affairs with underlings. Lemon was fired from CNN exactly one year ago for comments about Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley being 'past her prime' at 51 years old.
But the weekend celebration was nothing but bright with a “second line” procession through Manhattan with the couple’s three dogs, a nod to Lemon’s Louisiana heritage. ”I never thought that I would get married,” Lemon told PEOPLE. “I mean, maybe Tim's generation, he's 18 years younger than me. So for him maybe it was more of a possibility.
He added: “The legal part of it is a big deal because I didn't think it could happen. And for so many years of my growing up and hiding things, I never thought it could happen legally. But when you consider all the rights that people are trying to take away, I wanted to make sure that we get this done right.”