Andy Cohen got drunk and said some silly things on TV this past New Year’s. Most notably, he talked some well-earned shit about outgoing New York City mayor Bill de Blasio; Cohen also took a few shots at Ryan Seacrest, hosting his own NYE show on the other side of Times Square. Because of these & a couple other entertaining outburst, there was naturally some gossip that CNN had pulled the plug on Andy Cohen New Year’s Eve 2022.
Fortunately, we now know that this won’t be the case. And really there are two reasons why: one, what Andy said wasn’t really that big a deal; two, a drunken Andy Cohen makes for some fine television.
If you haven’t yet seen any or all of Andy’s comments, a number of YouTubers have made them available for your viewing pleasure. (CNN, perhaps unsurprisingly, has not posted any official video from their New Year’s show.)
Probably the most viral moment from the whole night — not the most infamous one, which I’ll get to in a minute — was Andy’s anti-de Blasio rant. Before new mayor Eric Adams was sworn in just after midnight, Andy called the de Blasio era “four years! Of the crappiest term! As the mayor of New York!
“The only thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on,” a hoarse, yet full-throated Cohen continued, while Anderson Cooper tried to talk over him, “is what a horrible! Mayor! He has been! So, sayonara, sucka!” (At that moment in the feed, you can hear at least one crew member laugh.)
The most infamous moment has to be Andy’s badmouthing of fellow TV personality and generally well-regarded fellow Ryan Seacrest. It was really the Seacrest slander that got Andy into whatever trouble he found himself. Shortly after Andy acknowledged that he made a mistake with his words, CNN gave its only official statement on the whole giggle-worthy dustup.
“Andy said something he shouldn’t have on live tv,” a network rep told People. (And yes, that “tv” was lowercase in the original statement, presumably because the person who wrote it had been drinking with Andy.) “We’ve addressed it with him and look forward to having him back again next year.”
After a couple days’ rest, Andy again addressed the issue in a chat with Howard Stern. He announced he made “no apologies for drinking on New Year’s Eve. None,” and said he only ever gets one note on the New Year’s hosting gig: “The only direction that I get every year, from [CNN chairman] Jeff Zucker, is, ‘Have fun.'”
“And that is my job,” Andy went on. “It was not only a middling year. But it ended in a car crash of COVID and Betty White dying, on the day of New Year’s Eve, who everyone loved. So, it was like, ‘We gotta kick it into gear. We gotta have fun — a lot of people are home, spending their evenings with us.”
If anything, “middling” is too kind a word for the type of year 2021 was. And Betty White dying on New Year’s Eve really was just the worst possible downer. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Andy and Anderson both did an on-air shot in Betty White’s memory about four hours before midnight. So maybe Jeff Zucker will just tell Andy to start drinking around nine or ten o’clock next year.
(Photo credits: CNN)
John Sharp is Starcasm’s chief editorial correspondent-at-large. Tips: E-mail or Twitter.
