‘I want to do better.’ Lee Cruse, Hayley Harmon tout new hour-long ABC 36 show.
After announcing his new show at ABC 36, Lee Cruse said he has “moved on” from what led to his firing at LEX 18.
Cruse, who was interviewed Tuesday by Monica Harkins at his new station, said he beat himself up “for quite a while” after the remarks he made last May on his old show, “Live with Lee and Hayley.” A remark some people called racist led to his firing two weeks later.
On the May 9 show, he was reading a script about a BBC radio broadcaster who was fired for using a chimpanzee to represent Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s newborn baby. Cruse laughed and said, “this is my new favorite disc jockey.” He said Tuesday it was “just a perfect storm coming together.”
“A bunch of confluences, one of them I was not prepared, so I wasn’t sure what the story was that I was speaking about and that’s how it all fell apart for us,” he said.
“I want to do better,” Cruse added.
Cruse, who is teaming up with former LEX 18 co-host for “The Lee and Hayley Show,” told WHAS’ Terry Meiners their new show will be an hour long on weekday afternoons. It is slated to begin on WTVQ Feb. 17.
An announcement will be made Friday on ABC 36 regarding the show’s time slot, Cruse said on Kentucky Sports Radio Wednesday morning.
Chris Aldridge, the general manager at WTVQ, said the positive feedback outweighs the negatives in their hiring of Cruse.
“There will be some people, and there always is, you can never please everyone, but at the same time, I can’t even begin to tell you the overwhelmingly positive response that we’ve received from this,” he said on ABC 36.
The hosts have created their own production company, Lee & Hayley, LLC, and own the new show in which they will partner with ABC 36. It will feature celebrity and musical guests, touring comedians, current event features, comic sketches and human-interest stories.
“We get back to having a sanctuary for people who are sick and tired of bus crashes and barn fires and want to see something that is interesting, compelling and hopefully funny,” Cruse told Meiners.
Cruse hopes for the show to eventually be syndicated throughout the southeast, he said on KSR.
Harmon said on KSR she is not permitted to talk about the show yet, but tweeted Tuesday the opportunity is a dream come true.
“When God closes a door, he opens a window, as cliche as that is,” she said. “But boy - he blew one WIDE OPEN for us!” Harmon wrote on Twitter.
The podcast Harmon hosts with LEX 18 reporters Claire Crouch and Jacqueline Nie, The A Block, will continue to release episodes, they said Tuesday.
Kentucky Sports Radio’s Matt Jones, singer J.D. Shelburne and Fox 19’s Kristen Pflum were among the hundreds of people who congratulated Cruse and Harmon on their news Tuesday.
This story was originally published November 20, 2019 at 11:37 AM with the headline "‘I want to do better.’ Lee Cruse, Hayley Harmon tout new hour-long ABC 36 show.."