This post was originally published on this site
““I was just stupid and drunk and feeling it.””
Talk about a New Year’s Eve hangover.
“Watch What Happens Live” host Andy Cohen went on a couple of unscripted — and inebriated — on-air rants while co-hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve special in Times Square with Anderson Cooper last weekend.
They included:
Calling outgoing NYC mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration the “crappiest” in the city’s history. “The only thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on is what a horrible mayor he has been. So sayonara sucka!” he said.
Claiming the rock band Journey, which was performing on ABC’s rival New Year’s Eve broadcast, was “fake Journey” because the lead singer wasn’t Steve Perry, who fronted the band during its most commercially successful period between 1978 and 1987. (Perry hasn’t performed with Journey in more than 30 years.)
And speaking of ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” special hosted by Ryan Seacrest, Cohen mocked the competing broadcast filming in another part of Times Square a few times.
“There’s a bunch of smoke coming from Ryan Seacrest’s group of losers that are performing behind us,” Cohen said. “If you’ve been watching ABC tonight, you’ve seen nothing, I’m sorry.”
The latter is what Cohen seems to have the only regrets about, however. He told listeners on his SiriusXM “Radio Andy” show on Monday that, “the only thing that I regret saying, the only thing is, that I slammed the ABC broadcast,” he said. “And I really like Ryan Seacrest, and he is a great guy, and I really regret saying that. I was just stupid and drunk and feeling it.”
Cohen also tweeted on New Year’s Day that he was “a bit overserved” during the Times Square ball drop celebration.
There were some questions as to whether CNN would pull him from the broadcast in the future, however, with staffers reportedly telling Radar Online that they were “embarrassed” by Cohen’s behavior on the network.
“We claim to be the most trusted network in news and yet CNN hires Andy Cohen to make a fool out of all of us with his New Year’s performance?” one CNN employee was quoted as saying. “Andy doesn’t even work for CNN, and yet he has been the face of our network for the past 48 hours. It is embarrassing and real CNN staffers are very angry.”
But CNN told Radar that, “Andy said something he shouldn’t have on live TV. We’ve addressed it with him and look forward to having him back again next year.”
The network also told Deadline and Buzzfeed that Cohen will be back next year.
Perhaps this is because ratings for CNN’s “New Year’s Eve Live” almost doubled over the previous year, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The 4.5-hour special averaged 3.36 million viewers, a 95% jump from the 1.73 million who watched on Dec. 31, 2019.
ABC’s “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” with Seacrest still pulled in the most viewers, however, although its audience grew more modestly. The special averaged 9.31 million viewers over the weekend, compared to 8.5 million a year ago.
Cohen has hosted CNN’s “New Year’s Eve Live” with Cooper since 2017. He replaced Cooper’s former longtime co-host Kathy Griffin, who was booted from the annual broadcast after posting a controversial video that showed her holding up a mockup of President Donald Trump’s severed head.
