Maybe Andy Cohen is looking to follow the latest trend of being “sober curious.”
The Watch What Happens Live host clarified to Page Six that he won’t be partying in his typical fashion when he and Anderson Cooper host CNN’s annual New Year’s Eve broadcast.
“We aren’t drinking, but we’re going to have a blast,” he informed the outlet.
Cohen’s penchant to imbibe with Cooper on Dec. 31 became a hot topic recently when he told Rolling Stone about his plans to throw a few back this year, despite a booze ban by CNN. “CNN said the correspondents will not be drinking,” Cohen told Rolling Stone in the story published Dec. 28. “Anderson and I will be the people partying on CNN [though] we will be partying responsibly. My job is to take Anderson out of his comfort zone [and] my job is to be a party ringleader for everyone watching us on New Year’s Eve. And that is what I will continue to do. And as a matter of fact, If the correspondents are not drinking this year, I will be partying even harder on their behalf.”
Earlier this year, CNN chairman and CEO Chris Licht instructed staffers at a company town-hall that the network would be cutting back on the extensive on-camera drinking seen in years’ past, saying it had impacted the network’s “respectability” and questioned its credibility as a news source. Clips of the alcohol-fueled CNN co-hosts Cohen and Cooper went viral during last year’s broadcast.
While blotto during last year’s show, Cohen also dissed Ryan Seacrest – which prompted the American Idol host to weigh in recently on staying sober when hosting a New Years Eve show. Seacrest will emcee Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve for his 18th year on Saturday, along with returning co-hosts Liza Koshy and country artist Jessie James Decker, in Times Square.
“I don’t advocate drinking when one is on the air,” Seacrest told Entertainment Weekly. “I don’t know how that started as a tradition, but it’s probably a good idea [to scale back], CNN. There’s some pretty respectable people or at least one, right? I think there’s a serious journalist and then a friend of mine who has a lot of fun, but it’s probably a good idea. Although the viewers probably wish they would drink more. But I think they had something to say about my show at one point, which was I’m sure from the alcohol because, I don’t think they would say what they said about our performers if they weren’t drinking.”
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