Posted by | Cyrena Rose
The host of BET’s new nightly show Don’t Sleep, T. J. Holmes is the November 2012 cover boy for UPTOWN MAGAZINE.
The 35-year-old West Memphis, Arkansas native shares his political stance, thoughts on how social media is MISused, his time as a CNN news anchor and more.
Enjoy the visuals of his photo shoot and excerpts of Holmes’ interview below:
“When I left CNN in December of last year they aired programming from 5 a.m. to midnight every single day, Monday through Friday. In all of those shows there was one person of color anchoring a show at 11 a.m.,” says Holmes. “You turn on the weekends—Saturday and Sunday—and there’s the morning shift I was on, the afternoon CNN Newsroom and the evening CNN Newsroom. Three African-American anchors on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Now you can make your own guess as to why that was, you can call it just a coincidence, you can say we all sucked and weren’t as good as those people Monday through Friday—whatever your opinion may be,” Holmes says crisply.
“I’m not sure I’ve officially said this to anybody before, but right before I left, and they saw I was for real about leaving, CNN did offer me a Monday through Friday show,” he revealed. “It wasn’t primetime, but it was still a Monday through Friday show,” said Holmes. “So unlike what I hear some folks saying, I didn’t just take this new gig because I didn’t have any other options, and I didn’t want to go back to weekends. No, this new show is actually something I believe in doing.”
“I want to lead by example at a network where I have the most number of young black people watching,” says Holmes, the father of a boy and girl from a previous marriage. “I would never, ever tell you who I’m voting for, but I can tell you right now that I’m supportive of President Obama. I was supportive of George W. Bush. I was supportive of President Clinton,” he adds. “I will be supportive of whoever is in the White House because that is my president and I want him to have a good day every single day he goes to work. We have to make sure young people get as excited about politics as the older ones.”
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