Comedian Roy Wood Jr. Accuses Critics Of Weaponizing His Jokes About Don Lemon

The comedian spoke at the White House Correspondents Dinner and made jokes (as is the custom). Fox News reports that the comedian says people are “weaponizing” his jokes about Lemon and that they “completely missed the point” of his jokes.

During the Saturday event, the comedian took shots at various high-profile figures such as Vice-President Kamala Harris, former Vice-President Mike Pence, and former CNN host Don Lemon. However, he feels that many people misunderstood the jokes he attempted to make about Lemon.

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“Speaking of a**holes, Don Lemon is out of a job. Don Lemon. My dog, Don Lemon. Don Lemon released a statement saying he got fired from CNN, then CNN released a statement saying that they offered Don a meeting. They had to part ways, because Don Lemon can’t even accurately report a story about Don Lemon,” joked Wood.

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In his view, he also went after CNN for firing Lemon too soon. He joked: “You don’t fire your host after the first couple of scandals. The scandals got to stack up. You gotta get the ratings.”

Wood Jr. appeared on “The View” and said that his jokes about Lemon are being weaponized against him.

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He said:

“The thing that I found most interesting on the other side of this was, you know, I was so worried about, you know, people on the right or whatever, taking a joke and using it to justify whatever they believe in. But what I also found in a weird way was, not only, like, the being able to take a comedian’s joke to try and cancel them or to push an agenda, but also people taking a joke and weaponizing it.”

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Wood claimed that his jokes aimed to draw attention to the fact that Lemon’s reporting had focused on drawing attention to marginalized communities. Jr.

Wood said: “The thing with Don Lemon for me, the thing I feel like everybody missed about the Don Lemon thing was that I was trying to say that, there is a man that, regardless of what he did off-camera, on-air he represented the beliefs and the viewpoints of a lot of marginalized communities, and he fought for that on air. And if he’s gone, I’m not sure if Charles Barkley is going to cover all of the boxes. And it’s not a dig at Charles.”

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He continued by saying:

“But it was about making sure that there’s representation on the airways and it’s about making sure that we watch and see over the course of the election, how media companies replace the Black faces that they get rid of and make sure that they represent those viewpoints still. And that was completely missed in the headlines. It was just, ‘You slammed Don Lemon!’ I’m like, okay, maybe, but also, ‘comma,’ there’s more.”

Regardless, many took his jokes as harsh swipes at Lemon and his work at CNN.