|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Who is Andy Cohen?
Andy Cohen is a television executive, producer, and talk show host. He is the host and executive producer of “Watch What Happens Live” and the executive producer of “The Real Housewives” franchise. Cohen has won an Emmy and two Peabody Awards for his work and has written two New York Times bestsellers.
He became the host of the late-night Bravo TV show Watch What Happens Live and Andy Cohen: Then and Now and is also synonymous with the Real Housewives franchise. Additionally, he hosted a revival of Love Connection. As a published author, his latest book, Superficial: More Adventures from the Andy Cohen Diaries, was released in 2016.
Early Life and First Interview
Andy Cohen was born on June 2, 1968, and grew up in Clayton, Missouri, in a Jewish-American family with his parents, Lou and Evelyn Cohen, and older sister, Emily Rosenfeld (formerly Cohen).
He developed a strong passion for television and celebrities from a young age, as mentioned in his interviews and memoir, Most Talkative (2012). Cohen was particularly fond of the soap opera All My Children, which inspired him to pursue an interview with its star, Susan Lucci, in December 1987. At the time, Cohen was a journalism student at Boston University, and he successfully convinced Lucci to grant him an interview in New York.
Early Career at CBS
Andy Cohen’s career in television spanned over two decades, starting with internships at CBS News and St. Louis radio and TV stations while still in high school. After graduating from Boston University with a degree in broadcast journalism in 1990, he joined CBS News as a news clerk for CBS This Morning.
He later became a producer for the morning show and the primetime news magazine 48 Hours, working at CBS for 10 years. In 2000, he moved to Trio as vice president of program development, and in 2004, he joined Bravo as vice president of original programming, a role he held until 2014.
During his tenure at Bravo, he transitioned to on-camera roles, hosting Watch What Happens Live and executive producing The Real Housewives franchise, in addition to hosting a show on Sirius XM and writing bestselling memoirs.
The Mastermind Behind Bravo’s ‘Real Housewives’
Andy Cohen is widely recognized for his association with the Real Housewives franchise on Bravo. As the host of the reunion shows, he skillfully guides the cast members through a reflective journey, revisiting the most contentious and memorable moments from each season. His ability to navigate intense conversations and elicit revealing insights has made the reunion shows a staple of the franchise, solidifying Cohen’s role as a masterful interviewer and a key figure in the Real Housewives phenomenon.
Cohen helped develop the Real Housewives franchise, starting with The Real Housewives of Orange County in 2006, when he was a programming and development executive at Bravo.
In his 10 years in program development at Bravo, Cohen helped shepherd the reality shows that would define the network — from the Real Housewives franchise to a slew of others, including Project Runway, Top Chef, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, The Millionaire Matchmaker, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List and many others. In November 2017, Cohen’s contract with NBCUniversal was renewed through 2020.
Cohen is unique in that he’s one of the only executives in TV history to have parlayed a career in program management and production into a career as a TV star.
The First Openly Gay Host on Late-Night TV
With Watch What Happens Live, Cohen became the first openly gay man to host a late-night TV show. He came out while in college at Boston University, which he attended from 1986 to 1990.
“It was one of the scariest things that I’ve ever done,” he said in an interview with Joy Behar in 2012, talking about the moment he told his mother he was gay. “I’ll never forget that day. I left [a] letter actually out which I didn’t mean to, and my mom found it … The letter was to a friend of mine in London who I came out to … She [his mother] came and said, ‘I think you have something to tell me.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to tell you,’ and she said, ‘You have to,’ and I said, ‘Well, you know. …’ She said, ‘You have to say the words so that you can say it.’ So I said it. I’m crying, crying, and about an hour later she said, ‘You know I would have hated your wife anyway.’”
Satellite Radio and Book Publishing
Beyond his work on Bravo, Andy Cohen has successfully diversified his media presence. Notably, he has established his own radio channel on Sirius XM, dubbed Radio Andy, and launched a book imprint, Andy Cohen Books, in collaboration with Henry Holt & Co. ¹ This expansion showcases Cohen’s versatility and growing influence in the entertainment industry.
Books: ‘Diaries’ and ‘Superficial’
Cohen is the author of three books, all of which deal with his career as a celebrity interviewer and pop culture personality. The books are Most Talkative: Stories from the Front Lines of Pop Culture (2012), The Andy Cohen Diaries: A Deep Look At a Shallow Year (2014) and Superficial: More Adventures from the Andy Cohen Diaries (2016).
Cohen also began keeping a diary in 2014, a habit inspired by Oprah Winfrey that consequently spawned two of Cohen’s books — The Andy Cohen Diaries and Superficial.
Live Appearances With Anderson Cooper
Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper, a prominent CNN news anchor and Cohen’s friend, collaborate on the traveling show AC2: An Intimate Evening with Anderson Cooper & Andy Cohen. They engage in thought-provoking discussions on diverse topics in front of live audiences across the country. Additionally, they have co-hosted CNN’s New Year’s Eve special since 2017, offering a unique blend of news, entertainment, and celebration to mark the beginning of each year.
Son and Personal Life
In 2015, Cohen began dating Clifton Dassuncao, an MIT and Harvard graduate, 20 years his junior, described in Superficial as the “Brazilian Andy Samberg.” In March 2018, the TV host revealed that they had broken up.
Cohen welcomed a baby boy, Benjamin Allen, via surrogate in February 2019.
In March 2020, Cohen revealed that he had tested positive for the coronavirus
