Hosting live TV isn't an easy job, but for some news anchors, all they need is a little — or a lot of — liquid courage.
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00:00Hosting live TV isn't an easy job, but for some news anchors, all they need is a little,
00:05or a lot of, liquid courage.
00:08Starting on a somewhat lighter note, it's become a bit of a tradition for CNN's newscasters
00:12to drink on the air on New Year's Eve. In 2016, Don Lemon honored this custom with gusto.
00:17At the encouragement of Kathy Griffin, a drunk Lemon began to unbutton his shirt on live
00:21TV until co-host Brooke Baldwin's protests won out. The same evening, Lemon got his ear
00:26pierced, played bartender, contemplated getting a tattoo, and — allegedly — danced on
00:31a table to ABBA's Dancing Queen with a green lampshade on his head. Luckily, all of these
00:35decisions seemed to be in good fun.
00:37In subsequent New Year's Eve broadcasts, Lemon sucked the head of a crawfish proffered by
00:41a random stranger, and confused CBS affiliate reporter Carice Jackman for an ex-girlfriend
00:46after spotting her in a crowd. And while Lemon was fired from CNN in 2023, it's safe to say
00:51his New Year's broadcasts will go down in TV history.
00:54Admittedly, this case of on-air drunkenness isn't confirmed, as the newscaster in question
00:59later attributed her behavior to sleep deprivation while speaking with the Times-Union.
01:03Reportedly, Heather Kovar of Schenectady, New York's WRGB-CBS6, had just gotten back to work
01:09after time off following her father's death. She was scheduled to work back-to-back shifts
01:13that weekend, and that's when things went awry. Kovar showed up on air for the 6 p.m. Saturday
01:17broadcast slurring her words, going off on tangents, and even calling their meteorologist
01:22by the wrong name.
01:24Uh, uh, meteorologist Craig Adams is right here with you. Uh, I'm sorry,
01:28Craig Adams. Why did I say that?"
01:30Viewers took to Axe during and after Kovar's broadcast to voice their opinions. Some were
01:34sympathetic and concerned for her well-being, but others were less friendly. One wrote,
01:38That's what exactly a hot mess looks like.
01:41Adding to the muddle, former NBC executive Mike Sington wrote a series of tweets updating people
01:46on Kovar's situation. He claimed a producer at CBS disclosed to him that Kovar often showed up
01:51at work intoxicated, just never to the extent that it was noticeable on the air.
01:55CBS suspended Kovar following the incident, and she responded by opting not to renew her
01:59contract with them when it expired on July 31 of that year. A few weeks later,
02:03she went online to tell folks that she was okay, and later took another reporting position in Texas.
02:09Frank Somerville worked at San Francisco's KTVU Fox 2 for several decades — that is,
02:14until his 10 p.m. broadcast on May 30, 2021. That night, he was slurring his words and
02:19mispronouncing vowels in an odd way, to the visible discomfort of his co-anchor.
02:23In a 2023 interview with Cron 4, Somerville addressed the event. He said that he accidentally
02:28took 2 Ambien before going on the air instead of his prescription medicine. He described himself
02:33as a total mess at the time. Speaking of his alcohol and drug abuse, he said,
02:37At the absolute worst, it would have been almost every night.
02:39What I was trying to do, quite honestly, was just escape.
02:43I was so sad and lonely from the divorce and missing my kids.
02:49Unfortunately, that tumultuous broadcast was just the first in a series of issues
02:52Somerville ran into. After the incident, Somerville was off the air until August 2021.
02:57He came back for a brief stint to cover Gabby Petito's disappearance, but was soon suspended
03:02for objecting to how much coverage her story was getting in comparison to those of missing women
03:05of color. The following year, he spent nine weeks in rehab after getting a DUI arrest and wrecking
03:11his car on the way to Taco Bell. Then, following this Cron 4 interview, Somerville got arrested
03:16twice in one night in June 2023. According to Cron 4, the first was for getting into a fight,
03:21and the second was for showing, quote,
03:23"...objective signs and symptoms of public intoxication after he was reportedly seen
03:27driving drunk." More recently, Somerville claims to have redirected the energy he put
03:31toward drinking into exercise and maintaining his physical and mental health. Since 2023,
03:36he's regularly posted updates on his Instagram about his sobriety and fitness journeys.
03:41On Thanksgiving Day 2024, NBC4 Washington anchor Leon Harris was clearly struggling
03:46to keep up with the teleprompter. After he stuttered and mispronounced words for several
03:50minutes, his segment was cut short and the outlet quickly shifted to weather.
03:54The debacle prompted many viewers to reach out to the network with concern.
03:57A few days later, the outlet responded with a brief announcement about Harris.
04:01Last week, Leon appeared unwell while anchoring News 4 at 6.
04:05Leon will be stepping away from the anchor desk to focus on health issues.
04:10Harris has a history of alcohol abuse. In 2022, he was arrested for drunk driving and
04:14spent 10 days behind bars. In an interview with fellow NBC4 reporter Doreen Gensler,
04:19he expressed deep remorse about the accident.
04:22I thought that, you know, after having about four glasses of wine, I was good.
04:26I wasn't. And nobody's gonna be good after that.
04:30After getting back to the news desk, he said that he was, quote,
04:33"...embracing sobriety and working with professionals to get his substance abuse
04:36under control." There's been no updates from Harris since NBC's announcement about him taking
04:40a break to focus on his health. And while it's not 100 percent clear that Harris was drunk on
04:44the Thanksgiving broadcast in question, it's good that he's focusing on his well-being regardless.
04:49It turns out, on-air intoxication isn't limited to the Western world.
04:53Back in December 2021, veteran Hindi-language newscaster Deepak
04:57Charasia showed up at work apparently drunk when reporting on the death of Chief of Defense
05:01Staff General Bipin Rawat. Footage from the broadcast shows a blurry Charasia in the bottom
05:06right of the screen mumbling a bit and clutching his head. He also mistakenly referred to Rawat as
05:10V.P. Singh, and said that, quote, "...we lost a journalist." This was enough for a slew of
05:15articles and posts to crop up online. One commenter on a Facebook post questioned why he wasn't
05:20arrested, and another posted a video of the incident with the hashtag, Shameful.
05:24Following the incident, Charasia took to Axe, where he denied viewers' assumptions that he
05:27was drunk. He went on to explain that he'd been dancing too much at a wedding at his house,
05:31inflamed an old knee injury, and then took a painkiller that made him loopy.
05:35Regardless, Charasia's career seems to have suffered little from the incident.
05:38He's since moved on to the reality TV show Big Boss OTT 3.