Melissa Harris-Perry rejects MSNBC deal in scathing farewell. [View all]

[Stellar]

Melissa Harris-Perry has chosen the freedom to speak over an exit package.

On Tuesday, the outgoing MSNBC host said that her exit negotiations with the network fell through after she refused to accept the terms of a non-disparagement clause that she described as "a gag order."

"They wanted me to sign a non-disparagement clause, and we had a deep disagreement over what constituted the non-disparagement clause," Harris-Perry told CNNMoney on Tuesday. "They wanted me not to speak about MSNBC. I said no."

James Perry, Harris-Perry's husband and the one who led the negotiations with MSNBC, said that MSNBC's non-disparagement clause would have restricted his wife to speaking about MSNBC only when it was "positive or in her academic work."

"I'll never get another penny from MSNBC," Harris-Perry said.
The channel announced on Sunday that it was "parting ways" with Harris-Perry. That came two days after she published an email to friends saying that she had been "silenced" because the network had pre-empted her show for two consecutive weekends.

Yvette Miley, the senior vice president of talent and diversity, told CNN that Harris-Perry's show, like others on MSNBC, was only pre-empted in order to focus on the contentious 2016 presidential primary contest and said there were no plans to cancel it or strip Harris-Perry of editorial control.

"MSNBC is the place for politics, and as we're covering 2016 part of that coverage meant that we were going to look for opportunities during the course of 2016 to really focus on the race for the White House," Miley said. "There were pre-emptions that impacted shows across the network."

James Perry confirmed that MSNBC had never expressed any intention to cancel her show prior to her decision to publicize her email. But he also said that the network's treatment of his wife was "consistent with the way they had 'disappeared' other hosts."

"Over the past year, a lot of employees have been disappeared from MSNBC, and what we've observed is there is a clear process for how they've been disappeared: You get taken out of the system and your name as a host is taken out of it as well. And then when you communicate and ask them about it, you don't get any response," Perry said. He declined to provide specific examples.

Both Harris-Perry and James Perry said that she had continuously asked MSNBC's leadership for clarity on her role with the network and received no response.
"Starting around Thanksgiving, I began asking, 'Does anybody know if the show is going to be on air in 2016?" Harris-Perry said.
Holding back tears, Harris-Perry said that she worked hard to support her family, her kids and her mother.

More: CNN