Don Lemon denies ex-CNN colleague Chris Cuomo’s claim about Jeff Zucker

Don Lemon is denying ex-CNN colleague Chris Cuomo’s claims that a yearslong “bromance” that the pair portrayed during the handoff between their two primetime slots was fake.

Lemon — who was fired from the network in 2023 after a series of on-air gaffes and complaints about his off-air conduct with his peers — denied Cuomo’s recent dish that their then-boss Jeff Zucker had asked Cuomo to keep him in check by playing up a friendship for viewers.

Lemon generated headlines on Monday after a “man-on-the-street” podcast segment went off the rails when a passerby in Manhattan told him that he was “full of s–t” and a “f–king moron.”

During their heyday at CNN, Cuomo and Lemon were known for their on-air banter as the former, whose one-hour talk show ended at around 9 p.m. ET, “handed off” to the latter in a segment that grew popular with the network’s viewers.

But Cuomo threw cold water on the on-air relationship, telling Patrick Bet David in a podcast interview earlier this year that Zucker ordered him to stick around after his primetime slot “to help mitigate whatever’s going to come out of [Lemon’s] mouth.”

Lemon pushed back on the claim.

“Well, you know, Jeff and I are friends and I see Jeff and talk to him weekly… and I asked him about that and he just laughed and said, ‘Uh, that’s really sad,’” Lemon said on the “Mixed Signals” podcast on Monday.

“Why would he have to come on my show… It was for me to say, ‘Okay, Chris, thank you. Goodbye.’ I could kick him off whenever I wanted to.”

Lemon said that the “whole handoff thing came about because when Jeff came to the network, he said one show would just go… without any interaction between anchors.”

“And he told everyone, ‘I want a handoff.’ So there was a handoff with Anderson to Chris… And so he wanted a handoff between shows and I said, ‘Oh, you want a handoff? I’m going to give you a handoff.’”

According to Lemon, he leaned into the bit. “I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to talk to Chris. I’ll give him s– and I’ll make it really fun and then I’ll go on and do the news.’ And so that whole idea about that lengthy handoff, that was my idea. That that was me.”

The CNN alums’ nightly banter became one of the network’s highest-rated stretches, according to Lemon.

“In my head I was like, ‘This is the highest rated point of the day on the network. Why are we running away from it just to get to a rundown?’ And so that was me doing that on my own,” Lemon said.

The Post has sought comment from Zucker and Cuomo.

Cuomo, now at NewsNation, has expressed bitterness over what he views as Lemon’s failure to stand up for him in the time leading up to his exit from the network.

The pair once parlayed their chemistry into “The Handoff” podcast and even went on tour together. But their friendship unraveled after Cuomo was fired in December 2021 for secretly advising his brother, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, during his sexual harassment scandal.

Chris Cuomo dismissed any chance of reviving their partnership.

“Why would I do it?” he said when asked if he’d podcast with Lemon again.

“You think he’s going to apologize to me?… I am a loyalty guy… You’re ride or die, or you’re not.”

In February 2022, Zucker was ousted from his position as head of CNN after it was learned he had been carrying on a romantic relationship with a subordinate, Allison Gollust, who at the time was the network’s marketing chief.

Lemon’s downfall came in April 2023 after he declared on-air that GOP candidate Nikki Haley, then 51, was “not in her prime” — remarks that were branded sexist.

Since then, Lemon has launched “The Don Lemon Show” on YouTube. Cuomo has used his NewsNation perch to swipe at his former colleague.

“I don’t find what he’s saying particularly interesting,” Cuomo has said.

Still, Lemon insists he holds no grudge.

“I never said we’re not friends; I just haven’t spoken to him,” he told Mediaite last year. “We needed a little break. But I love Chris. I love his family. Very close to his family. But we have not spoken, no.”

Asked again this week, Lemon struck a dismissive note: “I don’t know what Chris is talking about. I just, you know, I feel, you know, whatever. Good luck to him.”