Former MSNBC host Joy Reid joked Thursday about her “breakup” from the network earlier this week. Speaking at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards in Los Angeles, the broadcaster opened the event with a lighthearted acknowledgment of her show’s cancellation.

During a surprise appearance at Essence's Black Women in Hollywood event on Feb. 27, Joy Reid joked she has recently "been through a breakup" after she was fired from MSNBC three days earlier, on Feb.

Some of MSNBC’s biggest stars are – in extraordinary on-air fashion – rebuking management’s decision to cancel Joy Reid and Alex Wagner’s shows and lay off their production staffs.