You know you’re wasted when you have to get talked out of piercing your nipple on live TV and settle for an ear. #CNNNYE pic.twitter.com/4s3Zy9rciE — Josh Sánchez (@jnsanchez) January 1, 2017

New Year’s viewers got an earful from CNN anchor Don Lemon, who started to rail about a dreadful 2016 after downing tequila shots and getting his ear pierced. And then the network cut off his mic.

Reporting live from a New Orleans bar, the tipsy 50-year-old ushered in the new year alongside Brooke Baldwin by lambasting the old.

As the bands started to play “Auld Lang Syne,” the cameras cut away to celebrating crowds and fireworks bursting in air — but the sounds of clinking glasses could still be heard.

“Happy New Year!” Lemon could be heard saying. “Oh my God! I need a little more — pour me a little more, a little more. Perfect. That had a big head on it. I can’t hear a damn thing. So, 2016 was awful…”

Suddenly,the sound went out and the raucous Big Easy crowds went silent. And when the audio was restored, Lemon and Baldwin were gone.

Lemon was seen guzzling tequila long before midnight.

“@donlemon and @BrookeBCNN are still drinking tequila in New Orleans. Less than 2-hours to go!” read a tweet from CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.

As midnight approached, Lemon tweeted: “#CNN producers & @brookebcnn trying to convince me to get a tattoo or a piercing of some sort. Should I?”

Kathy Griffin, who was on the air with Cooper, suggested that he get his nipple pierced, but he was talked out of it and found someone to perform the ear procedure live on TV.

“If this hurts, I’m going to be so mad,” he said as Baldwin held his hand in support.

“Is your mother watching?” she asked. “I bet your mom is … Mama Lemon, I don’t know what he’s thinking. At least it’s just his ear, you know what I’m saying?”

A squeamish Lemon then pleaded not to get blood on his jacket.

“It has to go back to Brooks Brothers!” he squealed as the needle pierced his earlobe.

As he rang in the new ear, a new hashtag was born: #DrunkDonLemon.

“Wow @CNN finally cut #DrunkDonLemon. Mike last nite as they should have months ago — now he’s their new circus act #BarPiercing,” tweeted user @Oasis00000.

“CNN is crazy. Don Lemon should have a weekly show where he drinks and tries to host 3 hours of programming,” @DPMurphey wrote.

Lemon — whom President-elect Donald Trump has labeled a “lightweight” and “dumb as a rock” — also revealed that he may pursue a relationship and be less “self-centered.”

“Are we going there, right now?” Baldwin said.

“People are saying that I’m lit,” Lemon said later. “Yeah, I’m lit. Who cares?”