Lemon, a 17-year veteran of the cable network, said he was "stunned" when his agent told him Monday morning that he had been terminated.
The CNN anchor publicly apologized for comments about when women "are in their prime" during a show that aired Thursday.
Chris Licht taps Don Lemon, Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow for CNN's new morning show. Licht made his name reimagining mornings for MSNBC and CBS, then revived Stephen Colbert's Late Night on CBS.