Joy-Ann Reid Returns to the Mic With New Podcast “The Joy Reid Show”

When Joy-Ann Reid signed off from her prime­time perch at MSNBC in Feb­ru­ary, she did so not with a good­bye, but with a promise: “We are not going to stop.” And she meant it.

After being oust­ed in a net­work shake­up, the pio­neer­ing jour­nal­ist and sharp-tongued truth-teller is tak­ing her voice and vision into her own hands. On June 9th, Reid will launch “The Joy Reid Show,” a brand-new pod­cast and YouTube series cre­at­ed and pro­duced through her own media com­pa­ny, Image Lab Media Group, Vari­ety reports. Co-found­ed with her hus­band, for­mer Dis­cov­ery Net­works edi­tor Jason Reid, the ven­ture is more than just a come­back, it’s a dec­la­ra­tion of inde­pen­dence.

Broad­cast­ing three days a week — Mon­day, Wednes­day, and Fri­day — from Wash­ing­ton, D.C., Reid’s new plat­form promis­es to be unfil­tered, unapolo­getic, and deeply root­ed in the very essence that made her a house­hold name. The debut episode will fea­ture none oth­er than come­di­an Amber Ruf­fin and for­mer South African ambas­sador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool, sig­nal­ing the show’s blend of cul­ture, com­men­tary, and glob­al per­spec­tive.

“This pod­cast gives me the space to be all of me — smart, skep­ti­cal, curi­ous, joy­ful, and some­times just plain fired up,” Reid shared via a state­ment. “It’s a plat­form where I can unpack the head­lines, sit with bril­liant thinkers, chal­lenge pow­er, and also just vibe with the cul­ture. ‘The Joy Reid Show’ is where real con­ver­sa­tions hap­pen — with­out the lim­its of tra­di­tion­al TV. I’m excit­ed to go deep­er, laugh loud­er, and speak more freely than ever before.”

The show will begin with two days focused on analy­sis and inter­views with news­mak­ers, while Fri­days will be ded­i­cat­ed to a more casu­al and inter­ac­tive freestyle ses­sion, a chance for Reid to con­nect with her ever-grow­ing base of sup­port­ers, includ­ing her 160,000+ Sub­stack sub­scribers.

Reid’s next chap­ter emerges at a time when major net­works are watch­ing their bright­est stars break free. From Don Lemon to Meh­di Hasan, for­mer anchors are stak­ing claims in the cre­ator econ­o­my, carv­ing out inde­pen­dent spaces that invite loy­al audi­ences to fol­low them wher­ev­er they go. Reid’s move echoes a cul­tur­al shift: pow­er is no longer just in the build­ing, it’s in the peo­ple.

While MSNBC con­tin­ues to explore dig­i­tal media under new lead­er­ship, Joy Reid is already there, lead­ing, cre­at­ing, and expand­ing. And she’s not slow­ing down. Plans are already under­way to scale the show to five days a week and to roll out orig­i­nal doc­u­men­taries through Image Lab Media Group.Reid has always been a voice that chal­lenged sys­tems and ele­vat­ed our sto­ries. Now, with full cre­ative con­trol and a vision all her own, she’s build­ing some­thing that can’t be can­celled,  because it’s root­ed in truth, com­mu­ni­ty, and the courage to speak both bold­ly and unapolo­get­i­cal­ly Black.

She’s not just reclaim­ing her mic, she’s redefin­ing the plat­form.

Cov­er pho­to: Joy-Ann Reid Returns to the Mic With New Pod­cast “The Joy Reid Show”/Photo cred­it: Get­ty Images/Essence