Don Lemon took to the airwaves Wednesday afternoon to apologize following social media uproar over a question he asked Joan Tarshis about her rape accusations against Bill Cosby.
Lemon was interviewing Tarshis when the the topic of oral sex came up, which she claimed Cosby forced her to do.
“You know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn’t want to do it,” Lemon told her when she appeared on CNN for the second time on Tuesday.
“I was kind of stoned at the time, and quite honestly that didn’t even enter my mind,” Tarshis said of the notion of using her teeth. “Now, I wish it would have.”
That statement lit up social media with rage that Lemon was blaming the victim, with the hashtag #DonLemonReporting rapidly becoming a Twitter trend.
Wednesday afternoon, Lemon cleared the air.
“As a victim myself I would never want to suggest that any victim could have prevented a rape,” Lemon said. “If my question struck anyone as insensitive, I’m sorry as that was not my intention.”
Lemon was referring to he himself being a victim of sexual abuse, which he has written about and discussed on-air in the past.
Watch the video above.