-It's always good to see you guys.
-Hey, why are you chuckling? What is funny right now?
-I just like the different energy already that I get.
I mean, this is totally, you came bursting out.
And you have a turtleneck and I love your elbow patches.
-A little red patch. It's the holidays. Yeah.
-And you just -- you're Anderson Cooper.
And you're very nice. And you're like...
-Yeah. I'm heavily medicated so...
-Yeah, okay. Good. Perfect, yeah.
I will be watching you New Year's Eve. Definitely.
But you guys, I wanna know more about you guys.
You guys have known each other for a long time. Been friends.
-Yes. -Yeah, we were actually set up
on a blind date.
You know when straight people know two gay guys,
they're like, "Oh, you guys should meet."
And so we were set up on a blind date.
We had a phone call to set up the date.
I was a young reporter at ABC. He was at CBS.
And I knew within 45 seconds
I was never going on a date with Andy Cohen.
-Why? You just...
-Well, I imagined him on like a bluetooth headset
with like gesticulating.
He was all excited and I know Andy violated my cardinal rule,
which is he asked me about my mom within the first minute
of talking to me.
-I wanted to date the Vanderbilt boy.
I was excited. -Yeah.
-Oh, my gosh. Do you remember it that way as well, Andy?
-I mean, I remember that something that I did
made him shut down, so now I know, yeah.
-It wasn't even a question.
It was just like, "Your mother is Gloria Vanderbilt."
I was like, "Okay, yeah. This is not happening."
-Yeah, it didn't happen.
-You never -- did you ever go on a date?
-Nope. -No...
-No. Never did.
-It's -- you know what? It worked out for the best.
Here we are. -Yes, yeah.
-And you're best of friends. -Yep, yeah.
-Do you think that you would be best friends if
you were growing up if you were like two young kids?
Would you end up being friends?
-We had such different childhoods.
-We were so different. His mom took him to Studio 54.
-When I was 11. -When he was 11.
-Twice.
-When I was 11, I had a paper route in St. Louis, Missouri.
Say what your job was. -I worked, too. I worked.
I worked. -Yeah. Say what it was.
-I was a child model. -I mean...
Anderson. It's time, "Anderson, you have sportswear today."
-Oh, my gosh.
-"Anderson's so tired from smiling today.
In his formal wear."
-For some reason, he thinks he mom has a southern accent.
-Southern accent, yeah. Not a southern accent.
You -- do you watch Andy's show?
Do you watch Housewives or anything?
-You know, I do. I mean, I don't watch them all,
but I'll watch the reunion shows so I can catch up.
Or I watch, you know, watch his late night show as well,
which I DVR.
But we go, we've been on tour together for the last two years.
So we have a stage show called "AC Squared."
We go around and we just tell funny stories.
But all these -- when you go out with Andy,
all these people come up to him and say taglines from
the Housewives and I have no idea what they're talking about.
They're all like, people come up all the time, they're like,
"Hey, pat the puss." I'm like, "What?"
Apparently, that's a tagline.
That's some sort of -- Or they're like,
"Hey, what are you doing here without Dorinda?"
I'm like, "I don't know who Dorinda is."
-He's like, "What's going on?" -Yeah, I mean...
-Is that the way he's like when you go to the airport
and you're going to do your gigs? I mean...
-Oh, no. Traveling -- we are so different.
Traveling with him is like when I go to the airport,
I'm in a hat, I just check-in, I stand in the TSA line.
-The hair. He's like Katniss Everdeen with the hair
if he has the hat. Girl on fire.
-It attracts a lot of attention. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-When Andy arrives at at the airport, though,
it's like the arrival of Queen Elizabeth.
He comes in like a -- like a red velour track suit.
-No. -No, I'm not kidding.
-No, I have -- I have a muted ADIDAS track suit on.
As an homage to Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott.
-Yeah. -So that when I take my ambien
and my wine, and then it becomes pajamas.
-Which you should not do. -Right. It becomes pajamas.
And then I wake up, and it's like evening to day wear.
-No, but when he arrives on the plane, it's like
he's greeting like a Housewives reunion.
All the flight attendants love him, of course.
And then, afterward, he, like, so he'll go --
he'll, like, walk down the aisle,
he'll be like, "Hey, everybody, it's TV's Andy Cohen.
Hey, nice to see you."
And then -- and then -- and then he'll go to
the separation between business class and that curtain
and coach and he'll go across and be like,
"Hey, everybody. TV's Andy Cohen.
"Yeah, no, I'll come back later. We'll take some selfies.
Okay, yeah. No, I'll bring some things. Okay, okay, bye."
-He's a people person. -It's like, yeah. He is.
-He's a man of the people. -Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I'm fun, he's not. -Yeah. That's right.
I'm reality, he's escape from reality.
-That's right. -I wanna see --
Did you ever think that you'd go on tour together
and do this thing?
-No. -No, no.
-We're at the Beacon two nights in January.
-The Beacon! -We're so excited. Yeah.
-You're like the Allman Brothers.
You're gonna be at the Beacon Theatre.
-We are so the Allman Brothers.
-You're gonna be in Boston on January 10th.
-Chicago and Toronto. -Toronto and Chicago.
So check it ac2live is -- where you can check these guys out.
Or I'm very excited about this. New Years Eve.
-It's gonna be great. -We're so excited.
I've been looking for a cute coat all week.
What?
-He doesn't understand, it's freaking freezing there.
And he's -- he literally said to me,
"Oh, I have a fitting for a coat."
I was like, "A fitting? You need like an Arctic parka.
You need -- you need Arctic boots."
-This is not sounding fun anymore and you told me
you were gonna send me a picture of those boots,
and you never sent it.
-Oh, my god. If only there was a machine you could type in
"Arctic boots" and a picture would show up.
I don't need to send you a picture of Arctic boots.
How hard is it to figure out what an Arctic boot looks like?
-You had promised me that you were gonna send me --
-Just Google Arctic boot and you'll find it.
-He literally is having fittings for -- I'm like,
"No, you don't need fittings. You need layers."
-Are you doing different changes throughout this --
-No! No, I just want one great coat. That's all.
It's gotta be a money coat.
-Yeah, but it's gotta be -- it's really gonna be freezing.
-I know. -And it's cumulative.
It's 4 1/2 hours. -I know.
I mean, you're making -- you're downselling it to me now.
-I think he imagines like we have a big set
and, like, space heaters or something.
Like, we're on a riser.
We have, like, 10 inches of space between us. That's it.
-You're on, like, a crane. -Yeah, we're on a crane.
Univision is right next to us. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And they have a big show, yeah. -I'm bringing a flask.
-Oh, they do a big show. -They do a big show.
-I'm bringing a flask.
-Well, I thought it could be kind of fun if we could maybe
just kind of fake ring in the new year just for now.
-Oh, okay. -Oh, nice!
-What colors, anyone, would you choose?
-Yes. I like a color. -Good. Perfect.
-And everyone gets a horn.
-Wow, these are nice glasses. -They're not bad.
I love how 2000 actually worked 'cause they were --
-Yeah, 2018 doesn't.
-Yeah, and once the 1's started coming, they're like...
This barely works. -This is so bad.
-This really doesn't work at all, but some dude's making
a lot of money off this.
This is like, oh, I get it. This like, barely fits me.
Everyone can only see through the 1.
That doesn't make any sense.
-It's a good thing I'm kind of crosseyed because my eye
can go through both sides of the 8.
-Oh, my heavens. Well, I wanted to wish you all the best.
And here's to a great 2018. -Cheers.
-Happy new year. I love you guys.
We'll be watching. -Oh, sorry. Sorry.
-New Years Eve live with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen.
Airs December 31st on CNN starting at 8:00.