Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin will be back this year to anchor CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage. As Out magazine recalls, the pair usually include hijinks that would not normally appear on the news network, thanks in part to Griffin’s notoriously raunchy brand of comedy. In 2009, she used a four-letter-word and has pushed the boundaries of the channel’s New Year’s Eve coverage. Cooper and Griffin are close friends, however.
Griffin told The New York Times in a joint interview with Cooper what lurks underneath Cooper’s stylish and professional demeanor.
“Anderson is an onion. Just when you think you’ve got him figured out, there’s another layer to peel away. But when you get to the center, he’s a crying little boy who knows he will never live up to everything his mother is. He’s never redone his apartment in quilt, for instance, the way Gloria did. Or had a matching quilt dress.”
Cooper’s mother is fashion icon and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt. In the same Times interview, Cooper said he had been at famed nightclub Studio 54 with Michael Jackson when he was a child. Griffin stepped in to remind him that Cooper was accompanied by mom and did not go on his own.
The pair revealed in the interview that in addition to being friends, they are consumers of each other’s work. Griffin watches Cooper’s CNN program, and Cooper attends Griffin’s live shows and tunes in to her television specials.
As for their pairing on New Year’s Eve, Griffin came on one year as a guest and the chemistry worked. She has been invited back ever since. Cooper, who has said several times he does not like the end-of-year celebrations in New York, says working with Griffin makes it enjoyable.
“I started working New Year’s Eve because I find it dreadful in New York. You can’t get a cab, and Uber is four times the normal cost. There are lines for everything. So, I volunteered to work…. I love doing the show with [Kathy Griffin]. I actually look forward to New Year’s Eve.”
Cooper says he is “genuine friends” with Kathy. The pair also told the Times she receives cautionary warnings about what not to say during the New Year’s Eve broadcast.
Cooper, who has been with partner Benjamin Maisani since 2009, recently revealed on Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live that he and Cohen first met when set up on a date — which went nowhere.
“I don’t know how, but both of us sort of decided, based on that one phone call, ‘We’re not going to go on a date.’ I don’t remember what it was.”
Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin host New Year’s Eve coverage on CNN starting 9pm eastern.
[Image David S. Holloway/CNN via Entertainment Weekly ]
