Don Lemon will imbibe on NYE special after CNN booze ban

Don Lemon can drink on the job this New Year’s Eve, after his former employer wouldn’t let him partake on past specials.

After being forbidden from drinking on-air at CNN, the former cable news anchor is bringing his New Year’s Eve party to his YouTube show — shots and all!

It became Lemon’s annual schtick to imbibe on-air during CNN’s New Year’s Eve special until 2022, when his then new boss, Chris Licht, implemented an alcohol ban for anchors and correspondents.

An insider, however, claimed Licht, “did allow [annual show co-hosts] Andy [Cohen] and Anderson [Cooper] to drink.”

Cohen exclusively told us back in 2022 that he and his broadcasting bestie would refrain from drinking on their annual show after CNN cracked down on the on-air libations.

(The duo downed non-alcoholic “mystery shots” throughout the the show that year.)

Lemon, however, is thrilled this year that he “wont have any boss telling him what to do,” as he readies his first New Year’s Eve broadcast as an indie journalist, our source said.

He even proudly reminded his followers that he was the CNN trailblazer that started the boozy trend, not Cohen!

“The whole CNN thing about New Year’s Eve and drinking, I started that s–t. Nobody was drinking. I’m like, I’m in a bar,” he explained to fans.

Lemon added that his then co-host Brooke Baldwin, “was like, ‘What is he doing?’ I’m like, ‘I’m trying to have fun,’” he said.

Producers took notice of their lively short segment, and, “The more fun I had, the more they kept coming back to me, and then they expanded it from 30 minutes to an hour and a half,” Lemon said.

“So, everybody now wants to drink, and they want to do shots and they want to do champagne. They did not do that s–t before I stared doing it,” he claimed.

Lemon’s live New Orleans New Year’s Eve special streams tonight at 7 p.m. (EST), with special guests like Luann de Lesseps, Big Freedia, Joy Reid, Sunny Hostin, Joy Behar, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), Tamron Hall and Alec and Hilaria Baldwin.

“Nobody, not one person that you’re watching on New Year’s Eve is going to have as much f–king fun as we’re going to have,” Lemon insisted.