Great minds drink alike!
Definitely no one knows how to kick off a new year like besties Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper— and CNN has let them do it since 2017. (Cohen replaced Kathy Griffin as Cooper’s co-host.)
After years — and countless juicy moments — of alcohol-enhanced airtime, former CNN CEO Chris Licht explained in 2022 that on-camera drinking corroded the network’s and their employees’ credibility in the eyes of the public.
“New Year’s Eve Live” viewers, however, seemed to care about the lack of liquor: 2023’s programming averaged 2.1 million viewers compared to 3.7 million the year prior.
Ahead of 2024, fellow late-night host Stephen Colbert tried to pry the news out of the co-hosts: Will they or won’t they be drinking this year?
Cooper replied, “I think you’re going to have to tune in to see.” He later joked that sober Cohen wasn’t “any less embarrassing.”
As folks at home await the results of Cohen’s plea to reverse the alcohol ban, take a look back at his and Anderson’s funniest moments on NYE so far.


Hooded Andy Cohen (left) was told to ditch his umbrella while co-host Anderson Cooper got soaked. CNN
2018: Andy storms against the Times Square Alliance
After it began raining on the co-hosts and Cohen properly protected himself, the Times Square Alliance — who provides security and is one of the coordinators of the event — told him to get rid of his umbrella. He didn’t take that news well, telling viewers, “I said I won’t do it.”
“I said, ‘Get the paddy wagon, cause that’s what it’s going to take.’ But now they are threatening to pull CNN’s spot from the credentials from Times Square for next year!” The only time the umbrella made a reappearance is when Cohen and Cooper interviewed Faye Dunaway, an icon surely deserving of coverage.


Cohen (left) introduced Cooper to his first shot of Jägermeister. CNN
2019: Anderson gets sauced — and saucy
Cooper took advantage of his prime-time position to try Jägermeister for the first time alongside Cohen. After downing a shot, he said, “What is that? Who would drink that?” Cohen answered, “College students and Jimmy [Fallon],” one of Cohen’s rival late-night hosts who gifted him the bottle.
Later on in the program, Cooper recounted a story about his mother, heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, backstage at Cohen’s “Watch What Happens Live.” She was worried whether Cohen would ask her whose manhood was the biggest when they were promoting their 2017 book, “The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss.” Her son relayed on-air: “She turns to me out of the blue and goes, ‘He’s not going to ask me who has the biggest c–k in Hollywood, is he?’”


As Cohen (left) questioned Snoop Dogg (right) on where he’d gotten high, » …
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