MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell apologizes after video of epic rant is leaked

Nick Paschal
·Supervising Producer, Yahoo Entertainment

A leaked video was released on Mediate Wednesday morning of MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell melting down while taping the Aug. 29 episode of The Last Word. It all began with a simple problem with his earpiece. After reading an introduction to a clip, O’Donnell pointed at his ear and said, “Why don’t I have sound? All right, it’s back, someone is pressing buttons and turning the sound off. Who’s asking for a Labor Day rundown in my ear?” O’Donnell then added, “Someone in that control room is out of control.”

O’Donnell out of control

That’s when O’Donnell started to get out of control. Not only was the anchor distracted by the people talking in his ear, but there was also someone hammering in the next room. “Stop the hammering out there! Who’s got a hammer? Where is it? Where’s the hammer? Go up on the other floor! Somebody go up there and stop the hammering!” O’Donnell yelled. “Call f***ing Phil Griffin! I don’t care who the f*** you have to call! Stop the hammering!” In case you’re wondering, Phil Griffin is the president of MSNBC.

As the mistakes and distractions continued to pile up, O’Donnell grew angrier and angrier. The anchor continued yelling, “Jesus Christ! Crazy f***ing sound coming in my ear! This f***ing stupid hammering!”

O’Donnell apologized via Twitter Wednesday afternoon. The tweet read, “A better anchorman and a better person would’ve had a better reaction to technical difficulties. I’m sorry.” O’Donnell’s rant was reminiscent of Bill O’Reilly’s infamous meltdown from when he was an anchor on Inside Edition. And of course, it wasn’t long before the internet took the video and ran with it. One person made a great mashup of MC Hammer’s “Hammer Time” playing under snippets of O’Donnell’s and O’Reilly’s rants.

The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell airs weeknights at 10 p.m. on MSNBC.

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