OUT EAST END
Don Lemon & Tim Malone Open Up
CNN anchor, fi ancé to marry after pandemic subsides
BY ANGELA LAGRECA
What is the most surprising
part about
Don Lemon and his
fi ancé, Tim Malone?
“Just how ‘regular’ we are,” Lemon
said with a smile.
The outspoken anchor of “CNN
Tonight with Don Lemon” beams
when he talks about his relationship
with Malone, a licensed real
estate agent with Douglas Elliman,
whose listings include multi-million
dollar residences in Manhattan
and the Hamptons.
“We sometimes joke about it
with our friends — how heteronormative
we are,” Lemon said with a
laugh. “We like to watch football,
we go ice skating, we cook dinner,
we do puzzles.”
Their Instagram pages look like
a remake of “It’s a Wonderful Life”
with a Hamptons twist — boating,
barbecues, beaches, playing with
their three rescue dogs, and restaurant
hopping.
It all began when the couple met
on a Friday night in 2015 at Almond
in Bridgehampton.
“Friday night there is like a gay
mixer,” said Lemon, who explained
that he stayed in touch with Malone
until the pair offi cially started dating
in 2016. They subsequently got
engaged in 2019 on election night,
and this past winter, they drove to
Lowe’s in Riverhead to buy Christmas
decorations in their vintage
1987 Ford Country Squire Woody
wagon — a throwback to the car
Malone’s family had growing up in
Southampton.
“It was a somewhat normal childhood,”
said Malone, who graduated
from Southampton High School.
“The Hamptons were a lot quieter
then. I really think the ‘dot com’
movement in the late ’90s changed
the Hamptons and made them
blow up. That was one thing that
got me into real estate — watching
the place develop and really seeing
the beautiful real estate evolve over
the years.”
Like some others, Lemon and
Malone chose to live out east fulltime
when COVID hit, though they
Don Lemon and Tim Malone fi rst met in 2015 at Almond in Bridgehampton.
returned recently to their apartment
in Manhattan.
“I’ve had a house in Sag Harbor
since 2016, so I always felt like this
is my community — and it was a
luxury to live there during quarantine…
It took me back to my childhood,”
says Lemon, who grew up in
Louisiana. “Kids would be riding
their bicycles, you’d smell the aromas
coming from people’s homes…
It was a great feeling.”
Coming of age in his hometown
of Baton Rouge, however, was not
so idyllic for Lemon.
“For me, it was two-fold,” he
said. “Because you already had
one strike against you because you
were Black, and then being gay in
the South — it’s really tough. I
came out at a much different time
than Tim. It wasn’t acceptable to
be gay and to be out. People were
still marrying women, they were
in the closet, you had a ‘roommate.’
I left Louisiana so I could
be myself, and I came to New York
so that I could live — and I never
looked back.”
For Malone, the challenge was
not so much coming out, but adjusting
to life with a prime-time
broadcast journalist.
“As a couple, I think we have
a pretty interesting story, just in
terms of our age difference,” said
Malone, who turns 37 in April.
Lemon recently turned 55. “We
have different backgrounds, different
racial backgrounds… There
were a lot of questions when we
started dating of what was going
to be the issue, and honestly, the
fact that we were gay was, like, last
on the list… It was more about ‘he
is in the public eye’ than anything,
which took some getting used to.”
In addition to his nightly gig on
CNN, Lemon hosts a podcast, “Silence
Is Not an Option.” His new
book, “This Is The Fire: What I
Say to My Friends About Racism,”
released on March 16, is both personal
and passionate.
“I think in order to fi x the problem
of racism — because it is a
problem and it does need fi xing —
we have to lead with love, because
if you lead with hate or anger, then
what you are going to get is hate
and anger,” Lemon said.
“Racism,” Lemon added, “is just
as detrimental as a power imbalance
or someone harassing you
CATHRINE WHITE
in the work place because it stops
your creativity, it may stop you
from progressing in your career,
and it can have personal effects.”
“I wish that there was an ‘#Us-
Too’ movement for Black people or
for marginalized communities for
racism and bigotry in the workplace
as there is a ‘#MeToo’ movement,”
he said.
Looking forward, the couple
wants to get past the pandemic
and get married. They are also
looking ahead to the prospect of
having children.
“Tim’s gotta have the kids because
he is younger,” Lemon joked.
“We still have to fi gure out where
home base will be. It’s exciting, and
a little scary, to have this little life
we’re going to be responsible for.”
In the meantime, Lemon and
Malone enjoy their downtime out
east, in a place where they feel “a
real sense of community and home
and family.”
“People think of the Hamptons
and they think ‘Oh, it’s fancy and
it’s rich or whatever’ — and we
just have a normal life there,” says
Lemon. Malone echoes the feeling:
“That’s key — it’s an escape.”
MARCH 25 - APRIL 7 , 2 20 021 | GayCityNews.com
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