Anderson Cooper Spent $3K On High-Tech Clothes To Stay Warm During 2017 NYE Show — Then Forgot The Batteries

Anderson Cooper may want to try a more low-tech approach to keep warm this New Year’s Eve.

Last year, in an attempt to keep warm during the frigid New York night as he hosted CNN’s coverage, Cooper bought $3,000 worth of high-tech, electronically heated clothing, the New York Post reported.

Then he forgot the batteries.

“It was so cold, nobody was thinking straight,” Cooper told the newspaper of the on-set mishap.

Staying warm is a struggle for Cooper and the other television hosts who brave the elements in New York City to bring coverage of the ball dropping in Times Square. The report noted that they all put on plenty of layers, and Ryan Seacrest said he tries to keep moving all the time to keep his adrenaline going. There are also plenty of space heaters on the platform where he stands to broadcast from Times Square.

Cooper and co-host Andy Cohen aren’t so lucky over at CNN, where they were told that space heaters were a fire hazard on the show’s small set. So Cohen said that his year he plans to get a big bag of hand warmers and keep as many on himself as possible.

Last year ‘s weather was particularly bad in Times Square. As the Guardian noted, it was one of the coldest New Year’s Eves in history, with a high of 11 degrees for the night and a wind chill that took it below zero. It even prompted the New York Fire Department to deploy extra personnel on hand to deploy medical attention to revelers who needed it. A number of other towns and cities even had to cancel their New Year celebrations because of the bitter cold, though the show went on in New York City and hosts like Anderson Cooper had to find whatever means they could to keep warm.

"It's always some sort of disaster waiting to happen," Anderson Cooper says of CNN's #NewYearsEve coverage https://t.co/G4MqOPCeN2 pic.twitter.com/Qh7DdE5pwd

— Variety (@Variety) December 27, 2018

It may not be as hard this year. Temperatures are expected to be in the low- to mid-40s throughout the night, though there is a chance of some rain to make things just a little more miserable. So Cooper and the other television hosts may trade their layers for rain gear for most of the night.

If Anderson Cooper wants to find a more effective — and affordable — method of keeping warm this year, he could always emulate Ryan Seacrest’s co-host, Jenny McCarthy. She said her trick is multiple layers of long underwear, the thicker the better.