CNN’s Don Lemon says a break-up with his boyfriend made him come out to his mom years before going public

CNN anchor Don Lemon has revealed that it was a breakup that helped him come out to his mother, 15 years before he went public. “My first boyfriend and I had broken up. We were living together in New York in the mid-90s, where I had moved so I could live around other like-minded people,” Lemon told PEOPLE.

The 54-year-old continued that his mother Katherine Clark sensed his sadness from back home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. "So I told her, 'Mom, I'm really sad about John and our relationship,'” Lemon said, adding when the mother asked him what kind of relationship they had, “I told her, 'He was my lover.' That's when I started crying." The journalist said that it was "one of those scenes", his mother, Clark, told him that she had chosen to stop paying heed to rumors over the years and that she loved him unconditionally.

"She was okay with it for a while. But as I became stronger, she became weaker,” Lemon told the magazine. He explained further the reason behind Clark’s weakness was her desire to have grandchildren, and also she was tensed for her son's safety, emotional health, and career. However, eventually, things started to fall in place. Lemon said his being open helped his mother. “She started to learn about my friends and my life, and she really started to accept it. She realized that all [her fears] weren't true, and she was building that up in her head,” he mentioned.

Lemon reportedly came out in public in 2011 via a New York Times profile. “I've learned that only once you come out, once you see the world from that perspective, then you get to be, 'What was I worried about?'" said the 54-year-old who is now engaged to real estate executive Tim Malone. “Now I have three dogs, I live with my fiancé. We go on vacation. We rent motor homes and we go camping and we do things that I never thought that I would do. And now I'm just like — it all feels normal. I'm buying a station wagon, okay?" Lemon added.

This comes after Lemon called out Hollywood A-listers, including Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, for keeping silent over the May 25 death of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes. He accused them of doing “nothing” while the country is burning.

“What about Hollywood? Strangely quiet,” the ‘CNN Tonight’ host said during a conversation with Rev. William Barber on May 30. “I see them on Twitter saying, ‘Oh, I’m loving what Don’s doing’ … but they got to do more than that. Especially Black celebrities and Black leaders — and white celebrities,” he insisted.

“Why aren’t they helping these young people? These young people are out there standing on the platform … the edge of the abyss by themselves. Yes, I’m calling you out. You can be mad at me all you want. You’re sitting there and you’re watching TV and you’re b***hing about it and you’re saying, ‘oh my god, I can’t believe this is happening. What’s going on?'” Lemon said in his emotional monologue.