Melissa Harris-Perry stunned fans last week when she walked off her show Friday after weeks of being pre-empted – and after what she called almost a month of calls and emails to her bosses being ignored.
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Instead of returning, however, it has been confirmed that Harris-Perry and the network will sever their ties.
Harris-Perry has focused on the politics of race, gender and social justice on her “Melissa Harris-Perry” show.
Perry and MSNBC parted ways over the weekend due to a variety of creative differences and the impending cancellation of her beloved Nerdland.
However, Harris-Perry’s husband, James Perry, said that the “disappearing” of hosts from the channel is nothing new.
Bassett chucked that cigarette out of her hand, and Harris-Perry is chucking MSNBC out of her hair. I am not a token, mammy or little brown bobble head.
“Starting around Thanksgiving, I began asking, ‘Does anybody know if the show is going to be on air in 2016?”
“When we can do that, I will return – not a moment earlier”.
Melissa Harris-Perry turned down MSNBC’s severance package Tuesday over what she described to CNNMoney as a “gag order”.
The Illinois lawmaker pointed to “the great NBC racism flip-flop” a year ago, when NBC allowed GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump – who Gutierrez and other Democrats have lambasted as “racist” – host “Saturday Night Live” after previously distancing the company from him following Trump’s comments about illegal immigration. The “scorching” email, now public, is being cherry-picked in articles, particularly the part where Melissa wrote, “I will not be used as a tool for their purposes”.
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Harris-Perry stopped short of accusing NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack and MSNBC President Phil Griffin of being racially motivated in their decision-making. In addition to Harris-Perry, Bashir, Toure and Finney, several other hosts of color – including Al Sharpton and Joy Reid – have seen their shows canceled or moved to weekends. Gutierrez also questioned why anchor Jose Diaz Balart was not being sent to Florida to report on the primary.
