Since 2003, Anderson Cooper has been a staple in cable news, and his influence is only growing.
But despite all his success, the broadcast journalist's life has more or less been defined
by personal loss and career near-misses.
This is the real-life story of Anderson Cooper.
At a very young age, Cooper suffered a terrible loss.
According to the Huffington Post, Anderson's father, Wyatt, passed away during open heart
surgery when the young Cooper was just 10-years-old, and the tragedy permanently hardened him.
During a segment for CNN called "The Person Who Changed My Life," Cooper explained,
"Loss changes you.
Particularly when you lose a parent at a young age.
The world suddenly seems a much different place.
More dangerous.
The person I was before my father's death, the person I was meant to be was far more
open, more interesting than the person I've become.
I wish it wasn't so.
But the self-reliance I learned has also served me well."
Self-reliance wasn't the only thing Cooper learned at a young age.
His father left him with another great quality that helped him rise to the top in a wildly
competitive industry.
Cooper admitted,
"He gave me the sense that I had value, that my ideas mattered.
That instilled in me a confidence I don't think I would have otherwise had."
In 1988, Cooper's brother Carter took his own life.
According to The New York Times, the 23-year-old, who was receiving treatment for depression,
passed after jumping from the terrace of his mother's 14th-floor New York City penthouse.
His tragic passing has haunted Cooper for more than 30 years.
In a CNN essay, Anderson revealed that he still struggles with asking himself why.
He wrote,
"You always hear tales about brothers who can feel each other's pain.
This isn't one of them.
When my brother died, I didn't feel a thing...I didn't see the pain he was in.
And when I did get a glimpse of it, it scared me so much I didn't know how to help."
"There's not a day that goes by when I still don't wonder, 'What was he thinking, why did
this happen?'"
Anderson admitted that the days following Carter's passing were particularly difficult.
He stayed inside to avoid the reporters that gathered in front of his building.
He left just once to go to his brother's apartment to pick out a suit for the burial.
He wrote,
"The place was just as he'd left it.
A half-eaten turkey sandwich was on the kitchen counter.
The air was stale, the bed unmade.
I remember it still smelled of him, and I bent down to his pillow to feel close to him.
I can't remember what he smelled like anymore."
"People on TV often use that word closure, which, I hate that word…"
"I do too."
"...I just think there's no such thing."
If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Carter's death was particularly devastating for their mother, Gloria Vanderbilt.
The New York Times reports that she was there on the terrace when Carter jumped off.
She told People magazine that it's something she's never been able to get closure from,
and at the time, Cooper pulled back in his grief, which made things even more difficult.
In an excerpt from The Rainbow Comes and Goes, the memoir Vanderbilt co-authored with Cooper,
she explained how both of them struggled to cope, writing,
"Although at first I was aware of your distance from me, and upset by it, soon the waterfall
of tears that kept flowing from me washed away any awareness that you were shutting
me out.
I wanted to die and I only knew the stream of pain I kept going over and over and over
again was what was keeping me alive."
Eventually, Carter's passing did bring the pair closer together.
The CNN anchor admitted to People magazine,
"You can't help but come closer going through something like that."
In a 2014 interview with Howard Stern, Cooper admitted that, quote, "not a day goes by"
where he doesn't think about Carter, but his brother's passing also made him reevaluate
his own life and his career.
The CNN anchor claimed that his older brother, a Princeton graduate, was always the smarter
one, and Cooper wondered if there could also be the same darkness hidden somewhere within
himself.
He told Stern,
"I don't worry about it anymore, but I certainly did at the time...I think he had this impulse
that he could not contain."
These unanswered questions led Cooper to pursue a career in journalism as he worked through
his own loss by examining the losses of other people.
In a piece for Details, the anchor admitted he specifically sought out places riddled
with conflict like Thailand, Vietnam, and Bosnia.
He wrote,
"I'd come to be a reporter.
At least that was the excuse.
The only thing I really knew is that I was hurting and needed to go someplace where the
pain outside matched the pain I was feeling inside.
Somalia seemed a good place to start."
Cooper was admittedly a little lost when he started his career as a journalist.
Reeling from the loss of his brother, the star just jumped overseas after graduating
from Yale and faked his way into a massive career.
In a New York Magazine profile, the star revealed that he started freelancing in war-torn areas
after buying his own video camera and creating fake press passes, which surprisingly worked
to give him access.
He sold the reports to Channel One, a closed-circuit classroom news network, but it eventually
led to a job at ABC.
There, he became one of the youngest correspondents in the network's history, but his D.I.Y. reports,
which were often six minute-long, camcorder-shot quick hits, got him relegated to the overnight
shift at World News Now.
Cooper claimed no one within ABC actually watched the program.
That's when Cooper pulled a move completely out of left field.
He jumped into the world of reality TV and became the host of the hit 2001 reality competition
The Mole, a gig that majorly threatened his career as a serious reporter.
He justified the switch to New York Magazine, admitting,
"Frankly, I didn't see much of a difference between the stuff that I was seeing on news
shows and reality TV."
Cooper wasn't an immediate success.
In fact, his career is littered with misses.
It was only when he had nothing to lose that he was able to show his true talent.
According to New York Magazine, CNN took a chance on Cooper following his stint in reality
TV, but it was no easy task convincing viewers that the host of The Mole was a serious reporter.
In 2002, they gave him a co-hosting slot on their morning show with Paula Zahn.
He only realized he was failing when they sent him to Afghanistan without so much as
a camera crew.
He told New York Magazine,
"I don't think they liked me very much, and I don't think I was very good.
I got to Kabul and I was like, 'Hey, wait a minute.
This is how you get pushed out.
You get sent far away without any backup.'"
Cooper's big break came when he got the opportunity to fill in on NewsNight.
The week he was there, he threw caution to the wind because he had, in his words, "nothing
to lose."
He played with the audience and they majorly responded.
Not long after, he was given Cooper 360 and never looked back.
In 2019, Gloria Vanderbilt passed away days after being diagnosed with an advanced form
of stomach cancer.
Thankfully, Cooper did get to share some sweet last moments with the 95-year-old, who he
called his best friend in a touching eulogy on Cooper 360.
In the segment, Cooper revealed that he spent the last nine days of Vanderbilt's life by
her side.
He said,
"They were the most extraordinary days of my life and I'm very grateful.
Though I was holding her hand and her head when she took her last breath, it's still
a little hard for me to believe she's gone."
Cooper described his mother as the last of his immediate family and, quote, "the last
person who knew [him] from the beginning."
He was devastated by her loss, and said on-air,
"They're all gone and it feels very lonely right now.
I hope they are at least together."
Still, the star did get a chance to share some happy news with Vanderbilt before she
passed.
"I was able to tell her shortly before she died that I was going to have a baby."
According to him, she was "thrilled" to hear it.
For six years, Cooper had to deal with one of the scarier pitfalls of fame.
The CNN anchor had a stalker who repeatedly visited him and his then-boyfriend Benjamin
Maisani from September 2007 until he was finally arrested in July 2013.
According to the New York Daily News, Alex Hausner, who suffers from schizophrenia, repeatedly
made phone calls to the couple and showed up at CNN studios as well as their New York
City apartment.
The New York Post reports Hausner pleaded guilty to "felony menacing and harassment
charges" in 2014, but maintained the fact that he never meant to cause any harm.
Outside the courthouse, he told reporters,
"I'm sorry that [Cooper] feels that way.
He was never in any danger.
I would die for him."
According to the New York Daily News, Hausner ultimately made a deal to avoid jail time
in exchange for extensive psychiatric treatment, time served, and five years of probation.
Once he was released, he bizarrely alleged that Maisani was the one stalking him online.
He claimed people were sending him messages on Maisani's behalf, and he feared for his
life.
Nothing came of that claim.
For years, Cooper's sexual identity was subject to a lot of speculation, which was pretty
bizarre considering he didn't exactly hide his dating life.
According to Gawker, the CNN anchor never lied about being gay, and it was known in
some New York City media circles despite the fact that the rest of the world didn't know.
He was even described as "openly gay" in a 2003 issue of the gay lifestyle magazine Metrosource,
but that wasn't quite the case.
Cooper didn't acknowledge his sexuality on air or in the press until 2012.
In an email to a Daily Beast reporter, the star definitively revealed,
"The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn't be any more happy,
comfortable with myself, and proud."
So why did he finally set the record straight?
In the memoir he co-authored with his mother, Cooper admitted,
"At a certain point it started to feel like by not saying something, I was saying something.
It seemed like I was uncomfortable about something, which wasn't the case."
At the time, he was already leading an openly gay life with his partner and hanging around
gay bars, where anyone could easily recognize him.
In May 2020, as lockdowns swept across the nation following the outbreak of the coronavirus,
Cooper announced the birth of his first son, Wyatt Morgan.
In an Instagram post, the star revealed he was "beyond happy" and named the baby after
his father and his mother, Morgan is a family name on his mother's side.
Later, in an on-air segment, the journalist dove into the complicated emotions found in
experiencing joy during an era of great loss.
He said,
"It has been a difficult time in all of our lives, and there are certainly many hard days
ahead.
It is, I think, especially important in these times of trouble to try to hold on to moments
of joy and moments of happiness.
Even as we mourn the loss of loved ones, we are also blessed with new life and new love."
"On Monday, I became a father.
I've never actually said that before out loud, and it still kind of astonishes me."
Cooper plans to co-parent Wyatt with his ex-partner, Benjamin.
According to The Daily Mail, Cooper split from his longtime boyfriend sometime before
March 2018, though they were still living together.
In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Cooper admitted,
"Even though we're not together anymore...he's my family and I want him to be Wyatt's family
as well."
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