Joy Reid was abruptly fired from MSNBC in early 2025. The move came as a surprise because her show was one of the network’s highest-rated. Now she’s speaking out about the alleged unfair treatment at the network. Keep reading for all the surprising details.
Joy Reid Fired From Talk Show With Little Warning
The ReidOut was one of MSNBC’s popular shows. But it was abruptly canceled, and its host fired, in 2025. Joy Reid had been with the network since 2014. She hosted several other shows, including The Reid Report and AM JOY before the prime-time show in 2020.
The show was canceled after nearly five years in early 2025 amid abrupt restructuring by new network president Rebecca Kutler. The network has since undergone even bigger changes. It separated from NBC News and became MS NOW in late 2025, several months after Joy Reid’s departure. In a new interview, the former MSNBC host blasts the network for unfair treatment.
She Blasts MSNBC For Unfair Treatment
Joy Reid was already a well-respected journalist when she joined MSNBC. She worked as a columnist for The Miami Herald, among other accomplishments before joining the network as a contributor in 2014. She quickly moved up the ranks due to her professionalism and popularity with viewers. The ReidOut was one of the network’s most popular prime-time shows.
But Joy Reid was abruptly fired. She launched The Joy Reid Show on YouTube after leaving MSNBC. She recently attended the Behind the Scenes Beauty Day Soirée, organized by hairstylist Derick Monroe. Joy Reid spoke at the event about a much-ignored issue facing Black women who work on television: a lack of a qualified hair and makeup team.
“I was being damaged. Not only was my image less than it should’ve been [but] I was spending so much money to repair the damage that was being done to my hair, my face, my body, by people, who did not know,” she said about her hair and makeup early in her career.
“I was crying. I didn’t want to be on TV because I didn’t look good and I didn’t feel good about myself trying to just tell the truth and just do my job as a journalist,” Joy Reid added. But that all changed thanks to another Black journalist: Tamron Hall.
How Tamron Hall Helped Her
Before Tamron Hall got her own daytime talk show, she worked at NBC on the Today Show. She advocated for herself and forced the network to hire a professional hair stylist trained in styling Black hair.
At one point, Tamron Hall went to the network executives to advocate for Joy Reid as well. “‘This is unacceptable. This sister deserves better than this, and this has to change,’” the former MSNBC host recalled Tamron Hall telling the executives.
Joy Reid said that she eventually earned the “authority” to get a proper hair and makeup team. But before then, she was questioning her decision to go into the television industry. Joy Reid is one of many Black women who work in television who have spoken out about the lack of stylists who can work with their hair texture.
Follow Joy Reid’s show on YouTube for her take on the latest news stories.
Jennifer Havener grew up in a small town in Upstate New York. She earned her B.A in Writing & Literature from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. She always knew watching reality TV shows and soap operas, particularly ‘Days of Our Lives’, would come in handy someday. When she’s not writing, she’s playing with her dogs, Lola and Ruger
