Is Don Lemon Married? Who is His Husband or Partner Tim Malone?

June 2024 · 10 minute read

American TV journalist Don Lemon is not officially married, however, he has a partner named Tim Malone, with whom he has been in a relationship since 2016. Don and Tim got engaged in April 2019. Tim was the one that proposed to Don on his own birthday with dog tags worn by their beloved dogs Barkley and Boomer. The tags were engraved with the words, ‘Daddy will you marry papa?’  

Although it is not known if or when the lovers might decide to tie the knot, it is believed that some day in the future, they will join one of the many celebrity and non-celebrity couples who will take advantage of former USA President Barrack Obama’s legalization of same-sex marriage in America.

Since the CNN program anchor, Don Lemon, went public with his love life, his relationship has been of interest to many people, and even though we know that Lemon and Malone have been together for a while, a lot of questions have not been answered about them. Here, we have provided answers to a few, especially facts about Tim Malone.

Don Lemon Is Not Married But Has Been With His Partner Tim Malone Since 2016

Don Lemon joined CNN in 2006 and began to host the popular program “Tonight” in 2014. He met and started dating Tim Malone 10 years later (in 2016) after he had extended his stay in CNN to further his career. The two have been together since then with no negative reports about their relationship. However, their age difference is one aspect of their relationship people can’t help but share their opinions about.

Where there is natural, true, and genuine love between two lovebirds, age can be just but a number, and this has been the case with Don Lemon and Tim Malone. To have a clearer idea of their age difference, Tim Malone is 39 years old (born on 5th April 1984), while Don Lemon is 57 years old (born on 1st March 1966). This clearly indicates that Tim Malone is 18 years younger than Don Lemon.

However, it is interesting that despite the age difference between Don Lemon and his partner Tim Malone being huge, one may hardly notice this if the two lovebirds are seen together, as they seem to be almost the same age and bubbling with life.

Tim Malone Is A Trained Journalist Like Don Lemon

Tim Malone is an American real estate agent who was born in Water Mill, New York. He had his high school education at Southampton High School where he graduated in 2002. Later on, he enrolled and also graduated from Boston College in 2006. Tim, though now a real estate agent, once shared the same journalism passion with his lover and this led him to study journalism while in the university.

Having earned his bachelor’s degree in History and Journalism, Malone thereafter began his journalism career working for NBC, covering and assisting account executives. He worked as a journalist between 2006 to 2013 (7 years). He also worked for 3 years, brokering brand partnerships at Billboard before finally making a career transition in 2017 as a real estate agent. Since then, he has worked as a real estate agent with The Corcoran Group from 2018 to 2020 and is currently working with Douglas Elliman Real Estate – February 2020 to the present time.

The Duo First Met In New York In 2016 and Made Their Relationship Public In 2017

According to reports from reliable sources, Don Lemon started dating Tim Malone in the summer of 2016. However, contrary to popular reports from different online sources claiming that the duo had met a year earlier in a bar, Lemon in one of his tweets explained that they both did not meet at the bar. He claimed Tim was with him at the bar, while they met in New York.

Don and Tim went public with their relationship for the first time in the month of April in 2017, this was when Tim Malone first appeared on his lover’s (Don Lemon) Instagram page. Not quite long from then, around three months after Malone also appeared on Lemon’s Instagram page, Lemon made his first footprint on Malone’s feed on Instagram.

Exactly a month after that, Lemon and Malone decided to take a walk hand in hand at the 28th annual GLAAD Media Awards. Not only that, on New Year’s eve of 2018, the two lovebirds had a kiss on live television, and Lemon could be clearly heard telling Malone that “I love you baby”.

Right from when they both went public with their relationship, the two lovebirds haven’t stopped showing each other off anytime they have the opportunity, either on vacation in the Bahamas, at New York City, and countless social events that present them together. Thus, anyone who has been following them can tell that they would soon end up married.

Don Lemon and Tim Malone Got Engaged In 2019

With their love game that started in the summer of 2016, Don Lemon and Tim Malone decided to take their relationship more seriously by moving on to the next level. In the wake of 2019, they got officially engaged.

To many of their fans and those who have been following up on them, their engagement has established the fact that things are really working for the duo in their relationship, and the end product of this is already signaling the positivity we see between the couple today.

Just like every other individual, Don Lemon believes he has reached his desired destination and goal in his love journey, as he has peace of mind and enjoys blissful moments with the love of his life.

In an interview, he said he has just come across the right soul mate destined for him, somebody that believes strongly in absolute, pure, and unconditional love in its natural form, an individual that believes in the existence of challenges that must be encountered in any relationship, battled and conquered with prepared mind and self-will, as no working relationship comes easy, and on a platter of gold, someone that believes in family.

Don Lemon further stated that he grew up believing he would never settle down and get married, and never thought he could ever open up for his family and tell the public the truth about his sexual orientation. But eventually, when same-sex marriage became legalized, he then became courageous enough to take the bull by the horn and make his stand on getting married his own way.

Don then got the gut to really fall in love and have all the happiness his heart desires, which he believes every other individual is entitled to. As part of his words, he stated that he is just trying as much as possible to make himself happy and do what he believes is the right thing in his life, and also love someone genuinely and have a family.

The Couple Don’t Have Kids Yet

One could be wondering if these two lovebirds have had kids together since they got engaged or before they even met, but the fact remains that neither of them has had any kid. However, they both have plans to have their own kids as they settle down. Don Lemon admitted this in one of his interviews, where he opened up on this matter.

Speaking further on their plans to have their own children, he stated that their plan is to get married first, then having kids would follow that. In his words, he said the COVID had been halting their wedding, as they both don’t think having their wedding at the period would be a good idea, so they are waiting for the period to be over before going for the wedding, as they would like to celebrate it big time with their friends and loved ones and also celebrate it under a safe atmosphere.

He further revealed that they are both thinking about whether to adopt or go through surrogacy. If the latter option is adopted, his partner Tim Malone will be the one to have the kid. While they don’t have kids yet, they are human parents to three dogs who live in the same home with them. The dogs are named Boomer, Barkley, and Gus. In fact, Malone proposed to Lemon by inscribing “Daddy, Will You Marry Papa?” on the name tags of the dogs. The response he got is still part of what is keeping them together up till now.

Fact Check on Don Lemon’s Rumored Marriage to Stephanie Ortiz

Don Lemon’s sexual orientation has always been known to people around him, and he is proud to let people know who he is. However, he has been rumored to have married a woman in the past. According to many gossip sites, it is mentioned that Don was once quietly married to actress Stephanie Ortiz. This is, however, very far from reality, as there is no truth to the report that is also not linked to any official source.

Apart from the fact that there is no evidence that the story could be anything close to the truth as purported by some of these gossip sites, the truth about this story could not be established also from the two celebrities concerned, as neither Don Lemon nor Stephanie Ortiz has ever made any statement in this regard or come out to lay claim to such story.

Don Lemon Has Always Been Gay

One of the things that seem to be fuelling the rumor about Don Lemon being married to Stephanie Ortiz is the silence both of them are keeping about the allegation. Though they don’t owe it to anyone to speak up, considering their status as media personalities and by extension celebrities in addition to Lemon now being openly gay; a lot is expected from the duo to clear the air. But while facts and the truth might not be anywhere close now, we already know that he had known and admitted his sexuality for a very long time and Don Lemon can’t possibly have been married to a woman (Stephanie Ortiz), at least in being honest to himself.

The popular TV journalist and author had made his sexuality a secret for many years. This was not far-fetched from the fact that before then, there were very few openly gay news anchors and even very scanty reports pertaining to same-sex relationships.

It was Thomas Roberts of MSNBC and Rachel Maddow who were the most well-known around that period. According to Don Lemon, he admitted that even opening up to his mum about his sexual orientation was a heavy burden of fear, pressure, and emotional disturbance for him.

In his words, he said he had called his mother after his break up with a boyfriend in the 1990s, and she asked about the kind of relationship between him and the boy, and he replied they both were lovers, an affirmation he made with tears in his face.

According to Lemon, his mother was okay with it for some time, but as time passed by, he (Lemon) was becoming stronger with his stand, while his mother was getting weaker. Lemon revealed that his mom was more concerned about the wellness and safety of his son, and also grieved that she would not have the chance of becoming a grandmother.

But as she began to learn about Lemon’s life and his friends, she was beginning to understand it and realized that all her fears were not what she thought them to be. At a point that Lemon was ready to come out open with his sexual orientation to the public, the nervousness rose up again in him, as he was terribly scared about people’s reaction towards him. Just before his book where he came out was released, Lemon feared being centered on, whether he would be rejected or ostracized.

But at last, Lemon summoned the gut to do what he felt was right for himself. In his words, he said if he had seen more people like him who had come out proud with courage, it wouldn’t have taken him many years to leave in denial and fear to say the truth about his sexual orientation. Even though Don Lemon and his partner Tim Malone are yet to have their official wedding and get married, they love, respect, and cherish each other in their blissful relationship.

ncG1vNJzZmiglZ60qcDLoqWeZpOkunCwzqdkpZ2dpLtur82nZKCZqWK9or7Tp5yrZZKkxqe%2ByJ6lnWc%3D