“New Day Weekend” anchor Christi Paul announced on air Sunday that she’s leaving the network after nearly two decades with CNN and HLN.
Paul, who joined the weekend show in 2014, will join another news station in her home state of Ohio. She promised to announce her new position later this week.
As Paul took her “New Day” seat for the last time, she gave viewers the same explanation she says she gave to ex-CNN president Jeff Zucker in January of this year: that the demands of her exhausting schedule kept her away from her family. “I love these people, I love this place, I am so grateful and I am so tired,” she told her co-anchor Boris Sanchez.
“I just could not be who I needed to be for my family, is what it came down to,” she added. “It’s important work, but at the end of the day, somebody’s going to sit in this seat and I’m going to leave and the show will go on, as it should. Nobody else is going to be my kids’ mom.”
Paul’s send-off included a highlight reel of her stories over the years, such as the 2014 Malaysian Airlines crash, the Orlando shooting, Hurricane Harvey and the pandemic.
She also received goodbye messages from Sanchez and her former co-anchor Victor Blackwell, who thanked her “for some really good memories.”
Lastly, Paul bid farewell with a message for her CNN colleagues.
“I know that things are so divisive right now,” she said. “The people in these buildings – in D.C., in New York, here in Atlanta, all over the world – these are some of the smartest, kindest, most thoughtful, most talented people on the planet, and I am so grateful to learn from you and know you… This has been the ride of my life, and I wish all of you the best.”
Her final words recalled her signature sign-off: “Go make good memories,” she said. “I mean that.”
