TV presenter apologised on-air day after suggesting Joan Tarshis should have bitten the comic superstar during his alleged sexual assault of her

It was the question that Don Lemon, the CNN anchor, said “I had to ask”. Judging from the derision it provoked on Twitter, the consensus of his flabbergasted viewers was: “Oh no you didn’t.”

In a sequence that lasted barely 50 seconds during his interview with Joan Tarshis on CNN Tonight, in which she discussed her alleged sexual assault by Bill Cosby in 1969, Lemon managed not only to frame the incident in terms that many viewers found offensive. He also deigned to offer advice to women affronted by non-consensual sexual advances.

The TV presenter said: “You know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn’t want to do it.”

Lemon pressed on, even after Tarshis said the idea Lemon suggested had not entered her mind. “Meaning the using of the teeth, right?” the CNN anchor said. “As a weapon … Biting.”

“It didn’t cross my mind,” she said, again.

On Wednesday Lemon addressed his many critics directly on air. He broke into his afternoon news show and said that “as a victim myself I would never want to suggest that any victim could have prevented a rape. If my question struck anyone as insensitive, I’m sorry as that was not my intention.”



Outraged viewers expressed their sense that Lemon had crossed a line by questioning the behaviour of an alleged sexual assault victim rather than focusing on the man she said had abused her – in this case the comic superstar Cosby, who has been dogged by accusations of sex crimes since at least 2006 but has never been charged with any offence. On Twitter, people leapt to underline the audacity of his remarks under the hashtag #DonLemonReporting.

Elon James White (@elonjames) But why was MLK even on that balcony? #DonLemonReporting

Joe 'Monk' Pardavila (@joepardavila) Why did JFK drive down that road in Dallas? You're telling me there were no other streets? #donlemonreporting

Feministing (@feministing) RT @JamieGump @feministing I wish someone could explain to @donlemon how he could have avoided being an idiot by keeping his teeth together.

The caustic jibes were all the sharper in the context of an article in the Columbia Journalism Review last week that pointed out that Lemon had been among those TV figures who have interviewed Cosby at length without ever putting to him the allegations of serious sexual misconduct that have swirled around the star for years.

This is not the first time that Lemon has displayed questionable judgment, including his memorable suggestion at the height of the worldwide distress over the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane that it might have been sucked into a black hole. (CNN’s president, Jeff Zucker, on that occasion responded by calling Lemon “an idiot”.)

So far CNN has remained silent on this latest storm. The network did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.