Anderson Cooper, one of the most prominent broadcast journalists and political commentators, found his way to television all thanks to his reputation as an on-the-ground reporter of breaking news events. Among the rest, he covered Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti Earthquake which took place in 2010, and a lot more.
In 1995, Cooper was hired as a correspondent at ABC News, and then in 2001, he joined CNN. In 2003, he was given his own show, Anderson Cooper 360°. He remains the host ever since.
In 2012, Cooper came out as gay and has received several awards by the LGBT rights organization GLAAD. At the same time, he became “the most prominent openly gay journalist on American television.”
Recently, Cooper spoke of his relationship with his mother Gloria Vanderbilt, who passed away in 2019 at the age of 95 after battling stomach cancer.
Cooper also opened up about his mother’s final weeks and revealed during an “Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen in Conversation” event that the two “had an amazing last week or two together. We would just lay on her bed and hold hands,” as reported by People.
“When she got the diagnosis… she paused for a long time,” Cooper explained. “She was like, ‘Is it treatable?’ And [the doctor] said, ‘Look, you can go through treatments, but it’s like a miracle moonshot if it has any impact, and you’re going to be in a hospital.’ And she was like, ‘No, of course not.’ And then she paused for a long time and she said, ‘Well, it’s like that old song. Show me the way to get out of this world, because that’s where everything is,’ which is an old Peggy Lee song.”
He then found an old footage of Peggy Lee performing the song and played it for his mother.
“…She was like, ‘Oh, that’s marvelous,’ which was a big word my mom liked. And it became this thing that we would look at, this Peggy Lee video of her singing ‘Is That All There Is,’ like, once or twice a day,” the famous anchor revealed through tears. “And then she started to sing along to it and I would start to sing along. And then we had this great moment where she was holding my hand while we were listening to the song and it was like we were dancing. And it was lovely.”
When she was in her mid 80s, upon a gynecologist visit, she told her son, “I could still bear a child.” Cooper explained he was confused by his mother’s wish to have another child at such advanced years, but she told him that she was speaking of his child, not hers.
“She says to me, ‘Honey, I’m not talking about having a child of my own. I mean, that’s crazy. I’m 85,’” Cooper revealed while appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, according to TODAY. “She’s like, ‘Well, you know you can get an egg anywhere nowadays.’ I was like, ‘Uh-huh.’ She’s like, ‘Well, what I was thinking is you get an egg and, you know, fertilize it with your sperm and I’ll carry your child.
“I finally said to her, ‘You know, Mom, I love you, but even for you, that is just bat—- crazy. That’s just nuts,” Cooper added.
Before she passed away, Cooper told his mother that he was going to be a dad, something Gloria Vanderbilt hoped for her entire life.
“I was able to tell her shortly before she died that I was going to have a baby,” Cooper said on Live With Kelly and Ryan, as quoted by The Hollywood Reporter. “…Wyatt hadn’t been created at that point. Wyatt wasn’t actually a being at that point. But he was an idea in my head and I was in the process of it.”
Cooper is now a father to a beautiful boy. We hope his mother watches him from Heaven and is happy for him.
