She later blamed a cold for the painful-looking ailment.
As Erin Burnett appeared on CNN Monday night, one question kept many viewers distracted from the news: What happened to her eye?
Her right eye looked only halfway open, swollen and downright painful during the broadcast.
She tried to mask the problem by looking down, and turning to an extreme profile where viewers could barely see that particular side of her face, but the "eyesore" was obvious.
But despite those efforts, viewers were not fooled.
“You looked like you were in a boxing match,” one social media user wrote, as another advised: “Needs a pirate eye patch."
“Can't someone step in for you so you can heal?” asked one concerned viewer.
The journalist later responded to the criticism and concerns about her well-being, saying that she had been suffering from a cold that caused her eye to swell.
“Thanks so much everyone,” she said in a statement online. “I have a bad cold and literally minutes before the show my eye obviously was affected. Sorry all!”
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