16-05-2025
NBC anchor's shock confession about viral clip that cost him his job
A former NBC anchor who went viral for a shaky news segment in November that forced him to resign has now admitted to being an alcoholic.
Leon Harris, 63, addressed his struggles with the disease on Daryn Kagan's Call Me Friend podcast. The two hosted a show on CNN for years in the early 2000s.
Visibly emotional, Harris told his old colleague he had a 'couple glasses of wine' before the 6pm show.
Harris said he'd drank before going on air for years but that the practice had finally caught up with him after he entered his 60s.
His fateful segment aired on NBC4 Washington on Thanksgiving 2024 and saw the award-winning anchor flub simple sentences. He told Kagan it was the result of 'drinking between shows' - and left him checking himself into rehab within days.
'There, I got the help that I wish I had gotten the first time around,' Harris said, referring to his DUI arrest in 2022 that forced him to undergo 'some intensive work on myself with some very tough professionals,' he told viewers at the time.
This time, though, NBC Washington was more stern - issuing a statement saying Harris would be 'stepping away from the anchor desk' indefinitely to focus on his health the following Monday.
Harris told Kagan how despite not being back to the set, he hasn't 'thought about having a drink since December 14'. After 'some medications' and the rebab stint, he's said he's well on the road to recovery.
Harris has long been married to DC nurse Dawn Harris, and hinted at the incident impacting him 'domestically' but did not comment further on whether it ruined his marriage.
The couple share two adult children. He also revealed he was forcibly pulled off the air mid-show.
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'I can't drink anymore,' he told Kagan, speaking candidly on his struggles with alcoholism and losing self-awareness.
'And I didn't realize it.
'That's one of the bad problems about the way my alcoholism has jumped up and bit me in the a**.
'All the time I've been drinking - all my my drinking life - I knew where that line was. I knew when enough was enough. I knew when I felt I was too buzzed to work or too buzzed to drive or too buzzed to do anything.
'I lost that ability and didn't know it.'
'I ended up drinking in between shows and I went on the air and I was more affected than I thought I was even at the time I felt like I was perfectly fine,' he revealed.
'And I ended up getting pulled off the air.'
The abrupt admission left his former CNN Live Today costar grimacing, as if she felt too felt her friend's embarrassment.
A producer put him in an Uber home, he revealed - adding how even before clips caught winds on the internet, viewers were calling.
'They were thinking that I was having a stroke,' he continued, recalling the concerns. 'It was the most embarrassing thing that has ever, ever happened to me.
'I'll never be able to live down or get away from it.
'I have not been on the air at uh at my station at NBC4 in Washington ever since that moment,' he said.
'When anything hits the internet it never dies and it just took on a life of its own.
'And, as a result, I kind of knew it was coming, but the station just felt like it was too much of a negative event and it was too well publicized that they didn't feel comfortable in bringing me back.
'Even though I left and went immediately into rehab in a place in Cherry Hill, New Jersey called Recovery Village,' he added. 'And there I got the help that I [needed].
'It flipped the perfect switch for me in my head,' Harris continued.
He did not provide any plans to return to broadcasting, he was arrested for drunk driving and trying the flee the scene of the subsequent crash in January 2022, following another DUI arrest in 2013
'So, that part of it has been great.
'I have no problems admitting that I'm seeing a psychiatrist [and] going to AA meetings multiple times a week.'
Harris did not yet detail any plans to return to broadcasting, as he continues to focus on his health.
He was arrested for drunk driving and trying the flee the scene of the subsequent crash in January 2022, after which he failed a field sobriety test and recorded a .08% BAC - twice the legal limit.
In 2013, Harris was arrested after admitting to driving while impaired by alcohol. He was given probation before judgement in that incident.
That same year, while working ABC News affiliate in Washington, D.C., he was admitted to an intensive care unit for two weeks after experiencing excruciating abdominal pain caused by a bout with pancreatitis.
It saw Harris airlifted to hospital in Baltimore, where he was diagnosed. He expressed confusion to doctors and the press at the time at what brought on the condition.
Chronic alcohol consumption constitutes 17 percent to 25 percent of acute pancreatitis cases worldwide, according to the National Institutes of Health.
He started work as journalist in 1983 at CNN in Atlanta where he worked in numerous positions for 30 years, before moving to ABC-7 Washington, D.C. affiliate WJLA-TV in 2003. He started at NBC4 in 2017.
