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Busting bad dish!

Jerry Lewis Will Not Host Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon

Truth rating: 10

(GettyImages)

Jerry Lewis is no longer the national chairman for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and he will not appear on the organization’s upcoming Labor Day telethon.

The news comes after an announcement last May that Lewis’ final telethon would be on September 4.

That’s no longer the case, as the MDA has released a statement confirming that Lewis is no longer the organization’s chairman and will not host this year’s telethon.

There was no official explanation for the move.

His first telethon in 1966 was carried by a single New York station and raised more than $1 million. Last year’s telethon brought in nearly $59 million for muscular dystrophy and ALS research.

In all, Lewis’ telethons have raised more than $1 billion.

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  • http://bleacherreport.com/users/535519-nick-p nick price

    No Labor Day telethon for Jerry Lewis

  • Brianna

    Is there going to be a telethon this year hosted by someone else or are they just not doing it?

  • jae

    I cannot imagine what the telethon will be like without his presence there. I don’t know what the deal is with his decision to “retire” but I have read some feed back that he was being pushed out. I hope that is not true, he made that telethon what it is and a lot of the feed back that is coming around is that those folks that faithfully donated throughout the years are considering moving on to other chartities with their donations. If the execs at MDA are pushing him out as it was indicated in other articles because they want to get younger people in there to run the telethon, they are going to find out the hard way that Jerry Lewis is what got them all that money over his years as host and it is, after all, the “older” folks that are faithful to him who have the bucks to donate and do so because of him, not someone younger that they may not know the first thing about. They better get someone equal to Jerry Lewis to fill his shoes, but somehow, I doubt that is something they will accomplish easily.

  • Marcy

    Boycott this telethon. Jerry Lewis is an icon who started this telethon and to be ousted because of voicing his own opinion about the state of TV today is absolutely the worst. Yest, TV is in the pits with all this reality crap where no talent is needed and you become a 15 min. “star”. Bull….! I for one will not be watching this telethon and must say, I have for a long long time. Ridiculous.

  • Marcy

    Boycott this telethon. Jerry Lewis is an icon who started this telethon and to be ousted because of voicing his own opinion about the state of TV today is absolutely the worst. Yest, TV is in the pits with all this reality crap where no talent is needed and you become a 15 min. “star”. Bull….! I for one will not be watching this telethon and must say, I have for a long long time. Ridiculous.

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