Weather Woman Fired For Racial Reference?

[BillT]

This was probably 15 to 20 years ago now, but a female weather forecaster at WDIV was fired when she made an unintentional reference to black people after a segment was shown about gorillas at a zoo. Can't remember her name, but I believe she had long blond hair, and was possibly working with Carmen Harland at the time. Anyone remember her name and whether she ever got an on air job after that? She probably payed a big price for that whether she deserved it or not.

[RadioDork11]

Wasn't that Lauren Podell?

[BillT]

No, this was a good ten years before that. All Podell said was that she was tired of covering black violence in Detroit, but she'll probably not work on TV again either.

[Luke]

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/ ... ontent=amp

[Editorcj]

Poor Michelle Budenstein, she was trying to be clever on the fly and said something stupid. I was friends with her in college.

[Editorcj]

She was the third element in a tease and she ad-libbed a tie-in between the first 2 stories teased, one involved a black woman looking for a date for Valentines day and a new gorilla at a zoo. Goofy and dumb but not intentionally racist, I felt really bad for her at the time but she did land on her feet.

[lidoshuffle]

And shortly after she was fired from WDIV, Michelle Leigh started dating Arthur Penthallow (BABYYY!!!) from WRIF, apparently from hearsay I over heard at bar conversations with WRIF people I knew back then, she was high maintenance and kept bugging Arthur P. about "When are you taking me to Maui"??

lol

[ProducerXM]

No, this was a good ten years before that. All Podell said was that she was tired of covering black violence in Detroit, but she'll probably not work on TV again either.

That is incorrect. She said the N word. And in case you don’t know… that’s horrible.