How Andy Cohen survived the Reality Reckoning (at least for now).
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Andy Cohenthinks about his cancellation a lot.What will it look like?
You have to be smart about what you say because theres no nuance anymore, he says.
People are just waiting to be outraged by every little thing.
But Shaq not only answered; he gave a really funny answer.
Cohen wouldnt have it any other way.
I like being provocative, he says.
It makes me feel alive in a weird way.
I think it sometimes gets to the heart of who a person is.
If you navigate it well, it can become something incredible and intoxicating.
Its like dancing on the water: Are you going to go over or not?
On the whole, Cohen has navigated it very well.
Hes Americas gay best friend, as his friendJohn Mayerput it.Sesame Streethad him on to definepopularfor Elmo.
Still, he worries.
Sometimes at night Ill be in bed and Ill think,Huh, did I say something?
Im always waiting for the thing thats going to make it all fall down.
Lord knows it wouldnt be the first time Elmo had put his furry mitts in the wrong hands.
And weve also been able to replace them.
But then nothing happened.
The other night, we went to a party for Stephen Colbert, his friend Amy Sedaris recalled recently.
But then he changes his mind.
Saturday, January 1st, 2022, New York City, he reads instead.
Claire McCaskill texted the trashing of de Blasio was epic …
There arent many things anyone can tell you about Andy Cohen that he hasnt already said himself.
That he accidentally called Snoop Dogg Spook but deleted it from the broadcast.
(It turned out fine; they smoked a blunt afterward).
That he once told Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripas kids about sleeping with a guy who had a uniball.
That he and Sedaris once did ketamine before going to the Polo Bar.
That he has seen the boobs of at least three Housewives: Vicki, Tamra, and Kim.
Did he tell you about the Indian boots?
So instead he got a job as a producer at CBS News and became a fun party-boy-about-town.
He has that magnetic energy, says Sedaris, who met him through Parker.
He cant sit still.
Always promiscuous, always has his eye out.
He met Cooper when someone tried to set him up on a date.
Cohen blew it: I was like, Your moms Gloria Vanderbilt.
And he was like, Im not into you.
They all go to the same club.
I was like,Oh my God, the women, theyre going to hate this, he says.
So okay, lets go.
He was askingFlipping Outhost Jeff Lewis about the implants in his lips, Davies recalls.
And I had one of those moments where I could see the future.
Obama had just taken office, and the national mood was optimistic.
Cohens irrepressibility felt right for the moment.
The set was modeled on Cohens apartment, decorated with his own furniture.
There was no air-conditioning.
In the beginning, I was like Albert Brooks inBroadcast News, Cohen recalls.
I couldnt control my sweating.
By then,Watch What Happens Livehad hit 2 million viewers.
Oprah told Cohen he carried the light.
(There are a lot more now.)
I think its a feminist show, he says.
Cohen loves women, he adds.
And herespectswomen, especially the Housewives.
I dont know if I have the constitution to do that on television.
And so, obviously, there is drama and conflict, but theres a whole lot more.
As the Housewives rolled on, becoming an even bigger cultural and economic force, so did Andy Cohen.
Much more so than any late-night host.
He makes it look easy.
But he is paddling really, really fast under the water.
Said like the true son of a swan.
Maybe except for the year that I went off on de Blasio.
I mean, thats what winds up happening because hes a lightweight.
Hes totally taking the piss out of me, Cohen says.
Cooper likes to say Cohen has more fun being famous than anyone, and Cohen agrees.
I lived in New York for 15 years without being able to get reservations at restaurants, he says.
So yeah, of course Im going to enjoy it.
Cohen had a lot of famous friends by the time he became famous.
So I had a sense of how to behave, he says.
So Im ultimately very appreciative of the whole thing.
And you have to keep that perspective.
You cant go all in on it.
Because it can all go away tomorrow.
And I also felt like,You know what?
If I never go to theVanity FairOscar party again, Im going to be okay.
The following month, they threw him aStar Is Bornthemed baby shower in Beverly Hills.
It was like theAvengersfinale, Cohen later said.
And itwasa finale, in a way.
The year was 2019.
The world was a different place from when Cohen and the Housewives started out.
A reality star had been elected president.
The country was divided.
The world felt increasingly unstable, and so did the world ofThe Real Housewives.
Dance for Andy and his baby, she instructs.
Dance like your fucking lives depend on it.
I just thought it was such a cringe moment, says the former Housewife.
Because thats the dynamic.
Everyone just dances for Andy Cohen.
By the end of the decade, the divide between them was clear.
So far, the $100 million payout hadnt materialized for anyone but Frankel.
Evelyn Cohen didnt really watch the Housewives, but even she could see where this was going.
People were just becoming themselves on steroids, she said.
You play with fire, you get burned with these people.
Ole racist, she tweeted.
No one knew you until YOU knew me.
Out of all of the Housewives, Cohen had been especially close with Frankel.
In their last text exchange, they had talked about taking a beach walk together.
Then the lawsuits started coming.
Cohen might have been a fan of soap operas, but he didnt like being cast in this one.
He has never done cocaine with cast members, he says.
If you read my books, I tell you every drug I do.
It feels like so disconnected to what our day-to-day is.
I look around and I see real friendships, and people laugh every day.
And its like something insidious can seep in even when you really try your best not to let it.
There was a lot of noise, he recalls.
And I was definitely sad about it.
But when you really look at them individually, what are the arguments here?
Who are the players?
What is the context?
What do we know?
The fans of the show have all the context.
Weve watched all the seasons.
Like that of McSweeney, who talked about her drinking history in great detail on the show.
My opinion on that was that its attention seeking.
They knew the press would jump onto that.
McSweeney says that Andy Cohen did cocaine with other celebrities but not her.
Ive never been this much of a fan.
I actually havent been trashing the show, she said.
Ive said it wasnt for me.
Im not trashing people on the show.
Well you called it boring, toxic, women against other women.
I didnt call it boring, Frankel said.
Jeff, are you enjoying this?
I actually am uncomfortable, Lewis said.
Theyd been watching her.
Its a popular sentiment.
She cannot be close to anyone.
This is the next turn of the screw for her.
Shes turning on the person who has championed her.
She felt like,Oh, they insulted me, the anonymous host went on.
So now she is creating this role for herself as a vigilante.
Her fingerprints are on everything!
We all know what happened here, says Casey Wilson, co-host of the podcastBitch Sesh.We know these women.
They are our friends.
They are our insane aunts.
We have watched them for hundreds of hours on TV and on social media.
In this world, everyone is who they are, all the time.
Its a glorious world.
If you want to go to a different world, great.
Go to a different carnival, but were having a lot of fun in here.
He isnt going anywhere.
Ill keep doing the Bravo stuff for as long as Bravo will have me.
Listen, age is just a number, man.
For a second, he looks nervous.
Is that an R. Kelly quote?
I didnt know that.
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