Anderson Cooper & Andy Cohen’s Relationship: How They Met & More
What To Know
- Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen are cohosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve special for the ninth year in a row.
- The TV personalities have been friends for decades.
- Cohen and Cooper, who are both fathers, have spoken about why their relationship has never been romantic.
Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper are teaming up for the ninth year in a row to host New Year’s Eve Live on CNN. The guys will help ring in 2026 with some special guests and a lot of shots.
Cohen and Cooper have known each other for more than 30 years, but what exactly is the nature of their relationship? Scroll down for everything we know about this lifelong friendship.
How did Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen meet?
Cooper and Cohen met in the early 1990s when a mutual friend tried to set them up on a blind date. While things didn’t work out romantically (more on that below), the guys went on to form an everlasting friendship.
The friendship blossomed in the early 2000s when the guys were in the same group of friends that started traveling together. “Really the way we became friends is he and I have been around the world and back together. We’ve really been around the world together,” Cohen previously said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
Did Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen ever date?
No, Cooper and Cohen have never dated. They never even made it on their first blind date, with Cooper calling things off after he and Cohen spoke on the phone to set up the meeting.
“We had a phone call to set up the date, and I knew within 45 seconds I was never going on a date with Andy Cohen,” Cooper explained on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon in 2017. “He violated my cardinal rule, which is he asked me about my mom [Gloria Vanderbilt] within the first minute of talking to me.”
Cohen appeared on Howard Stern‘s radio show in 2022 and explained why his relationship with Cooper will never become romantic. “I just think it’s not what our relationship is based on,” he explained. “We’re just friends; that’s not a part of it. I think, at this point, we know each other too well. We’re not attracted to each other in that way.”
Does Andy Cohen have a husband?
No, Cohen does not have a husband. He is a single father to two children born via surrogate. He welcomed his son, Ben, in February 2019, followed by a daughter, Lucy, in April 2022.
Cohen previously dated John Hill, a Watch What Happens Live producer and the Bravo star’s SiriusXM cohost. They were together in the early 2000s and have remained friends after their split.
“We were in different places in our lives,” Cohen explained in 2020.
Hill later explained, “Like any breakup that’s sad, it was time to break up. I was changing careers, I was nearing 30. He was going to change careers, too. I knew he was going to a bigger network, and he was adjusting to that.”
Is Anderson Cooper married?
No, Cooper is not married. However, he coparents his two children Wyatt, born in April 2020, and Sebastian, born in 2022, with ex Benjamin Maisani.
Cooper and Maisani split in 2018, three years after going public with their relationship. Despite being broken up at the time Cooper’s first son was born, the two decided to raise the children together. They live in the same house.
“It’s probably an unusual setup, but I knew he would be a great dad, and he is,” Cooper explained to People. “We’re exes, but we’re family to each other, and we love each other as family and as co-parents.”
Differences about wanting kids was one of the reasons Cooper and Maisani split up, but the journalist said his former partner “came around to the idea” of being a dad amid Cooper’s journey to parenthood.
New Year’s Eve Live 2026, Wednesday, December 31, 8/7c, CNN
