Joy Reid still doesn’t know why she was fired from MSNBC but says her new show is thriving
Joy Reid left MSNBC in February and in June launched her immediately successful “The Joy Reid Show” podcast. When Joy
Joy Reid left MSNBC in February and in June launched her immediately successful “The Joy Reid Show” podcast.
When Joy Reid was unceremoniously fired from MSNBC in February 2025 during what the network claims was an overhaul of their show lineups, bringing her popular show “The ReidOut” to an end, many folks wondered where she was going and what she would be doing next.
The answer to that question is “The Joy Reid Show,” a podcast that—according to Reid—got over a million streams in its first week and hasn’t missed a beat, boasting a backlog of requests to be on the show. In a recent sitdown on The Breakfast Club, Reid spoke about her new show (just launched on June 9) and what it’s been like since transitioning from MSNBC into the independent space, and if there have been any issues with guests, support or growing the audience.
“We’ve had no problems getting bookings and getting support, and I’ve actually been overwhelmed by how quickly the channel has grown. Our growth trajectory is really good and really fast and so actually, I am very blessed to say: no issues,” said Reid. “We reached a million streams in literally a week.”
Seeing Reid land on her feet might not be a surprise to the legions of fans and supporters of her work and platforms over the years, but one question that most people still have is if she has yet to learn the real reason why she was let go since all theories about ratings and audience numbers have been debunked.
Charlamagne tha God asked her straight up, “Why did it come it [“The ReidOut”] to an end? You heard so many different rumors…the ratings were low…Trump didn’t want her there…like what was it?”
Reid, ever the professional, laid out the story for those who are still curious about how and why a network cancels one of its successful shows.
“The thing is, it’s so interesting, and, you know, Steven A. Smith tried to come for me and say, ‘Oh, ratings.’ It’s like, yeah, no, that wasn’t it. Everybody, after the 2024 election, all of cable news went in the toilet. Like, everybody’s ratings dropped. And we had actually just had a ratings meeting, like, two weeks before I was fired, where they were like, ‘you guys are actually losing…less than, you know, your competitors and you’re actually doing fine. So our ratings were fine. We were doing fine,” she shared.
She continued, “The ratings have not gotten better since I left. So it’s not numbers. It wasn’t ratings.” She further shared how she was let go and how the network handled it in the wake of a rumor in a story on the site “Puck” that is no longer available.
“Nobody had called me, nobody had said, ’You did something wrong, you’re in trouble, you’re on probation.’ I had gotten nothing. Then I get a text message early the next morning saying, ‘Can you talk at noon?’ And I was fired immediately. There was no warning. And I asked, ‘Well, you know, what’s the reason? Nothing. They were just like, ‘Oh, we just want to make some changes.’ They never said why.”
She added, “I’ve had to live in the rumor mill with everybody else.”
“The Joy Reid Show” is available wherever you get your podcasts.
What's Your Reaction?
