Ryan Seacrest Supports CNN Cutting Back On New Year’s Eve Drinking After Andy Cohen’s “Losers” Diss

Ryan Seacrest, Andy Cohen
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Ryan Seacrest, who was dissed by an inebriated Andy Cohen on CNN’s New Year’s Eve show last year, supports the network’s decision to cut back on on-camera drinking during its coverage of the last night of the year.

“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.”

Clips of the alcohol-fueled CNN co-hosts Cohen and Anderson Cooper went viral during last year’s broadcast.

“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,” Seacrest continued. “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.”

During the coverage, Cohen slammed the New Year’s Eve festivities playing out on ABC, with Seacrest as host. “If you look behind me, you will see Ryan Seacrest’s group of losers performing,” Cohen said. “If you’re watching ABC, you’re watching nothing.”

Cohen later apologized on his SiriusXM show Radio Andy, saying “the only thing that I regret saying, the only thing is, that I slammed the ABC broadcast 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.” He said that he “felt bad about that.”

Seacrest told EW there is no alcohol allowed on his New Year’s Eve show, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest, on ABC. “I think our show’s a bigger, broader show and we will not drink until 1:05 in the morning. Although, I might send them some Casa Dragones Tequila just to tempt them while they’re on the air.”

CNN chairman and CEO Chris Licht told staffers at a company town-hall earlier this year 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, according to Variety.

Cooper and Cohen will be allowed to imbibe during primetime hours on CNN’s New Year’s Eve show, but correspondents and anchors will be required to halt any boozing on-camera or off.